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Forget Flash: Resistive RAM Crams 1TB Onto Tiny Chip
nk497 writes "Flash memory could soon be a thing of the past, according to U.S. startup Crossbar, which claims it's close to bringing resistive RAM (RRAM) to the market. Crossbar is touting impressive specs for the RRAM technology, promising 20 times the write performance at a fraction of the power consumption and size of the current best-in-class NAND flash modules — and squeezing terabytes of storage capacity onto a single chip the size of a postage stamp. The company also claims its technology can retain data for up to 20 years, compared with the standard one to three years with NAND flash."
why do i need this if there is the cloud to keep my data? why carry 1TB on my iphone when i can just pay at&t more money for more data to stream my music and netflix?
The first one we already do. SSDs are great.
The latter two, what would you replace them with? A trackpad could work I guess, but I can't see a replacement for a keyboard. Speaking is way slower than typing, typing on a touch screen is an error prone suckfest, and those are pretty much the only options right now.
Do the memory points wear out after a certain number of re-writes?
Technoli
I don't understand why you would even want to replace them. Mechanical switches are the best thing available in terms of providing input with tactile feedback. The only reason to use anything else is cost or space constraints.
Cool announcement.
But...
Given how often we hear researchers exclaiming they've invented the next "Greatest thing (TM)", I'll reserve judgement until I can purchase what comes out of their research.
I'd bet given the patent landscape at the moment that no matter what they have they will be sued for infringement by somebody. It's the way of things today.
Looks like the CEO has 3 patents, one for portable storage, one for non-volatile memory, and one for a memory controller. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&p=1&f=S&l=50&Query=IN%2FMINASSIAN-GEORGE&d=PTXT So who knows, could be legit.
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
unpowered the flash cells will leak electrons off their floating gates (powered too if the device doesn't do some sort of maintenance cycle). with as few as 100 electrons making the difference on a cell...
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
More like
"Glass, check forecast for rainstorm"
'[OK, searching for cast of gay porn]'
How is that different than any other storage device failing?
This is why backups exist.
I can type faster than I can talk by a multitude, sometimes even faster than I can think
A quick look through YouTube's comments section reveals that you're not alone.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
But all the flash devices I've used have a retention period of at least 20 years (disclaimer: I'm thinking of flash ROMs and CPLDs and SPI flash for FPGAs, but the way they store bits is the same as a USB flash drive). I've never seen any as short as 1-3 years.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I have SD cards and USB thumb drives far older than 1-3 years and can still read the ancient data that was on them just fine.
Where did this "1-3 years for NAND flash" figure come from? It's a bit concerning.
a few notes:
- RRAM (aka ReRAM) is memsistor based RAM
- super simple design
- requires less power (lower voltage too) than FLASH and racetrack memory.
- 10ns switching (faster than DDR some DDR RAM)
- 1 trillion write operations according to US startup Crossbar
- possibly scaled down to 2nm (when they invent the manufacturing process)
so if this really works out, it may be a replacement for RAM and FLASH memory in lots of stuff. i'm not sure if this includes computers but at the very least, it could be used to retain data on RAM sticks (hopefully directly on them) when you turn off your PC.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
write-only memory has an infinite density.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
how is it faster than typing on a proper keyboard? I cannot speak as quickly as I can type.
You probably can and do speak significantly quicker than you type unless you have some sort of speak impediment. Most people can comfortably speak at around 150 words per minute which is far faster than most can type. Dictating however does take some practice so you quite likely would be slower at first until you get comfortable dictating.
So not only will they sell new computers without a Windows install disc, they won't even install it on a disk drive, it will be preinstalled in RAM and all you have to do is turn it on.
Although it is kind of an interesting idea to consider a computer where there is no distinction between mass storage and RAM, where RAM is rewritable but permanent.
You could even leave programs in a running state but just stop executing them on the CPU. You could install new software in an already-running and configured state (how's that for a backup?).
I have some trouble believing this. Does she sound like the micromachines guy?
Listen to physicians dictate some time, particularly pathologists or radiologists who tend to do a lot of it. Yes, they often do speak very quickly - 200+ words per minute is not rare. Once they get good at it, they can easily rattle off a report in far less time than they could possibly type it no matter how quickly they type. Transcriptionists normally have to slow the recording down while typing to get what is being said. It's very easy to talk faster than anyone can type. Takes some practice to do so in a useful manner though. Helps too if there is some consistency in what is being said - like if you have to produce a consistent type of report. Lawyers and doctors very often use dictation systems to good effect and they do it 100% because it saves time, even for good typists.
The issue I have with believing this is not the forming complete sentences before speaking, but the simple fact that speech is slow and error prone.
Not once you are used to dictating. With a proper dictation system you can easily start, stop and record over what you've already done if you make an error. (People make a lot of errors typing too) Typically you get the report sent back to you for review and correction after transcription. However even including review it is still usually faster than typing it yourself.
Interesting this comes up. Over the weekend at Quakecon John Carmack addressed the evolution of controllers and his thoughts on the subject in his keynote. My favorite was when he was mocking Apple having the one button mouse and then one upped that by saying the kinect was "like a 0-button mouse."
My main argument would probably be, when you have a physical key/button with tactile feedback you can much more easily ensure an intentional action on the part of the user. Whereas touchscreens you are much more prone to fat fingering the wrong key (although this happens sometimes on keyboards too to be fair, just not nearly as often in my experience). A promising tech I remember reading about I think on slashdot was the touchscreen that could bend in such a way as to give tactile feedback at any point of the screen for a variety of sizes and shapes. Arguments could still be made to have solid keys/buttons still, but brings the two a little closer together at least.
On a side note, a few years back, I was working on designing a tape robot that would be able to use bare 2.5" drives.
It had almost zero time to load (once it was plugged into a reader slot and spun up.)
It also had various uses it could work as, be it a VTL, the disks presented as tape libraries, spanning disks where data that wasn't used would be moved to platters, then demounted.
The problem was the robotics. Only one company was able to make the robots that could reliably grip, move, and ungrip the drives, and they were asking $10,000 per unit for starters.
Eventually, the project got shuttled aside, but having a silo that was able to use disks without any special enclosure required would have been nice for the enterprise (IMHO, of course.)
The sad thing is that touch screens are actually a really good idea, and should have made it into general computing years ago. Unfortunatly, the way the get implemented is to try and replace a mouse, or worse yet a keyboard. Trying to replace a mouse with a touch screen makes about as much sense as trying to replace a keyboard with a mouse. Touch screens are a third input device. Not a replacement for the current two.