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Researchers Make RAM From a Phase Change We Don't Entirely Understand (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: We seem to be on the cusp of a revolution in storage. Various technologies have been demonstrated that have speed approaching that of current RAM chips but can hold on to the memory when the power shuts off -- all without the long-term degradation that flash experiences. Some of these, like phase-change memory and Intel's Optane, have even made it to market. But, so far at least, issues with price and capacity have kept them from widespread adoption. But that hasn't discouraged researchers from continuing to look for the next greatest thing. In this week's edition, a joint NIST-Purdue University team has used a material that can form atomically thin sheets to make a new form of resistance-based memory. This material can be written in nanoseconds and hold on to that memory without power. The memory appears to work via a fundamentally different mechanism from previous resistance-RAM technologies, but there's a small hitch: we're not actually sure how it works. The two mechanisms used to change the resistance have been reported in the journal Nature Materials.
So they switched substrates from unobtanium to unexplanium?
can hold on to the memory when the power shuts off -- all without the long-term degradation that flash experiences....and has used a material that can form atomically thin sheets to make a new form of resistance-based memory. This material can be written in nanoseconds and hold on to that memory without power. THIS POWER USES COOL ENERGY.....A NEW FORM OF MATTER THAT IS JSUT THERE WHEN YOU NEED IT TO DO SHIT.
-Unresolved symbol? Byte me!
Every day we use things that work despite the fact that we, as individuals don't know how or why they work. In most cases someone knows how, but quite often we find out later that it doesn't work the way that person or group of people thought it worked. For example the brain works somehow, but nobody really knows how, despite the fact that we learn more and more about it as we go. So it is nice to understand how things work, but what is really important is that it actually works. I am if course not including Trump and his Trumptards, who clearly are the exception that proves the rule :-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Generally, we don't care about RAM holding its state beyond a power cycle, yet one of the focus' seems to be about holding the information long term. NVRAM perhaps? It also talks about flash degradation, but honestly, flash degradation hasn't been an issue in RAM modules, since, forever. In flash storage, the degradation hasn't been shown to be much of an issue with MLC let alone SLC drives. So what is this exactly? Enhanced RAM? Combined RAM/Storage? Of course the "it works but we don't know why!" is baity enough for the general population, but I guarantee they know enough about how it works to write a paper on it. Sheesh.
we're not actually sure how it works.
Call it ERAM aka Emo RAM because "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME AT ALL!" ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
What's the worst thing that could possibly happen?
--something witty
We don't know how it works but it keeps winning.
I'm glad Purdue is getting some dividends out of that nanotechnology center they built 10 years ago. That thing always gave me the creeps. Probably because I watched too much Star Trek as a kid.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
"Nerds store their data on punched paper tape, made of paper, which we don't entirely understand."
Go ahead and tell me everything you know about trees.
Clearly you are proof it doesn't *always* work, but I believe I already covered the counter-examples.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Sounds like regular engineering to me!
"I made something awesome, no idea how it works, but it does - don't touch it! You'll break it!"
You wasted all that time and energy typing that out on /. like a dumbass. No one will actually read all of that or even care.
About new kind of DRAM, they are selling smoke.
You know that system that is behaving badly and just seems to work again the minute you reboot? That might not work if engineers get non-volatile RAM to work really well. Everything will be in memory with no need to load it off disk. But those slow memory leaks, weird data corruption bugs, or software that stops working when it gets into a certain state; will not just magically disappear when you reboot!
No one knew how vacuum tubes worked when they started playing with them. In fact, the first tubes pre-date the discovery of the electron; and thermionic emission is how tubes work. But once they figured it out....hoooo boy here comes your electronic revolution.
Every day we use things that work despite the fact that we, as individuals don't know how or why they work.
Every day we rely on gravity and yet nobody knows how that works. We live in a universe that we do not fully understand and possibly never will. Understanding something often helps us to find a way to exploit it to do something useful but, as you said, it is not required.
Sometimes the blind refuse to see the obvious no matter how simple you make it.
I just Google'd Roger Shawyer Em Drive and it has a flaw in it, his waves needs to be at a fractional harmonic of 1F to work, and he'd be better using an electric wave, rather than the magnetic one (at right angles).
Light travels at C without propellant, *clearly*. It's a wave so its riding some oscillating field. So in principle he can make his thing ride that oscillating field too. But if he doesn't want to put in energy all the time, it has to be a harmonic of 1F (even fractional harmonic will do).
You already proved the oscillating field, it was already observed:
https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13041516&cid=57791044
The following thought experiment helps you understand that light and matter are one and the same.
1. Light has an oscillating electric field (by observation)
2. So light must have charges oscillating (because other electric fields derive from charged particles)
3. Light comes from matter (e.g. turn on a torch)
4. So matter contains the charges that form light's oscillating charges
5. Matter can COMPLETELY be converted to light (e.g. particle+anti-particle to photon)
6. So matter must be ONLY made of these two particles with no residue.
7. And the only forces derive from electric if we only have charged particles.
There is no mass, the difference between matter and light is not mass:
1. Light's has no mass
2. If matter is completely made of the same stuff light is made of, it has no mass either.
This is how momentum actually works (explained in super simple terms):
https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13054198&cid=57802324
I see NASA already measured thrust, which is what I'd expect. The thrust should depend on wavelength, and it should increase and decrease and increase and decrease as you go through the spectrum.
WHICH MEANS THEY CAN GET ME AN ACCURATE VALUE FOR F!
If you can measure the frequencies of the peaks, and I have enough of them, I (or you) can calculate the value for F because the peaks will be at a fractional harmonics.
"They conducted further experiments in vacuum, a set of 18 observations with 40-80W of input power. They published the results in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics's peer-reviewed Journal of Propulsion and Power, under the title "Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio-Frequency Cavity in Vacuum". This was released online in November 2016, with print publication in December.[24][91][92][93] The study said that the system was "consistently performing with a thrust-to-power ratio of 1.2±0.1mN/kW", and enumerated many potential sources of error.[24]"
Honestly when you understand the resonance field it's a real duh!
Think about it for a second, how do radio waves move? There's no 'mass' so no momentum, so how come they move? And how does light move? How does it slow down through glass as if its interacting with matter?
It is super trivial to understand:
https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13054198&cid=57802324
So of course the EM drive works, he just didn't fully understand why it works.
The problem with gravity is, it's been built up into a mystical container for all the magic that's needed to fix the existing physics model. It can never be defined or understood, because it can never contain all that magic.
"magic gravity" (the physics model) both bends space affecting light (to explain gravitational lensing) and stretches space *not* affecting light (to explain why the universe is accelerating outwards, with matter out-running light to explain the edge of the observable universe). It also somehow explains why the speed of light always appears to be C when measured.
Sorry but its really dull:
https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13054198&cid=57802324
Something akin to the clumping effect in water.
Imagine a resonant field, everything is oscillating on that field, light is travelling one wavelength over that field per oscillation of matter. So whenever you measure it, the matter of the equipment you measure it with sets its velocity. Hence C.
It is not gravity bending space. Such a thing is impossible, a simply thought experiment explains why:
https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13041516&cid=57791032
And space is not expanding, the edge of the visible universe is the event horizon of the black hole we're in. (We're oscillating at 2F relative to the outer 1F universe).
It's not particularly complicated to understand.
We have memories that we don't know how they work, perhaps they will be a good fit for quantum computing where we only probably know what they are going to do.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Sadly, you're probably correct insomuch as anyone on /. who cares about such things already knows this stuff is going on. So those who don't care will skip it and those who do care *may* skip it, or at best skim it because I'm preaching to the choir...
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Sadly, you're probably correct insomuch as anyone on /. who cares about such things already knows this stuff is going on. So those who don't care will skip it and those who do care *may* skip it, or at best skim it because I'm preaching to the choir...
Yes that's all well and good but did you consider all of the níggers?
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...' Isaac Asimov
Yes, thanks for the links. Interesting reading. Getting back to the future with "shared nothing" architecture, we had that at Tandem in 1976...
Yeah future large memory will be continuously erroring, single bits at least. Need something beyond SECDED...
But those slow memory leaks, weird data corruption bugs, or software that stops working when it gets into a certain state; will not just magically disappear when you reboot!
Obviously the boot monitor will clear RAM and retry on a boo failure. What you apparently don't know is that existing DRAM is in an indeterminate state when powered up, and it has to be cleared before use anyway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sorry, I'm not familiar with those issues. I'm not a Windows user. I suggest you try running an OS that values uptime.
Or stable operating systems with years of uptime. You expert.
Go back to your Windows. I bet there's another rebood needed in order to be able to reboot!
But you said *advanced*. Tha means no conquering and enslaving.
Some of us read it in full. Thank you for taking the time to compose a well-thought-out post.
Professional operating systems offer live snapshotting and uptimes of years or decades.
Even Windows can do some of this, nowadays
What you apparently don't know is that existing DRAM is in an indeterminate state when powered up, and it has to be cleared before use anyway.
Kind of. RAM stays wherever it is at the time; the OS will wipe each allocated page on allocation.
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Can't be. All modern systems require NOSMOKE.EXE compatible memory.
Two votes, nice post.
Thank you for doing so and for letting me know. But I'll bet you one free Internet that most of the issues I raised were things you were already aware of.
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