August 14th, 2007 by ketyung
Phase Change Memory is the next thing that we’ll see in computer industry that most likely will knock off the current dominant - flash memory. Phase Change Memory is the new kind of memory, which Intel and STMicroelectronics are currently preparing and aiming to hit the market sometime this year. On the other hand, Samsung has also announced that they’re working on their own version of Phase Change Memory but will likely be available next year. So, what is the Phase Change Memory about, how much better it’s compared to the currently popular flash memory?
The Phase Change Memory has got quite a number of nicks, it can be called as PCM, PRAM, PCRAM, Ovonic Unified Memory and Chalcogenide RAM C-RAM). It’s a kind of non-volatile memory (Meaning your data is stored in permanently, even though no power supplied, such as flash is one kind of non-volatile memory). The PCM or PRAM makes use of unique behavior of chalcogenide glass that can change between two states, which are crystalline and amorphous when heat is applied to it. These two states are for storing the 0 and 1 states of computer data. And the best of anything that you need to know is its speed is 100,000 times faster than current flash memory, bringing write speeds of up to 10ns per byte from the current 1ms. Furthermore, it’s capable of retaining data in a much longer period without causing any corruption than the flash can do now. This is due to it’s able to withstand up to 100,000,000 writes per sector, whereas flash can only withstand around 10,000 to 100,000 writes per sector before degrading. The downside of the PCM is it involves high temperature during the manufacturing process and computers need to provide much higher voltage or power in order to produce enough heat for using it, which means they’ll be much more juice hungry.
via [CooLest-Gadgets]
Phase Change Memory,PCM,PRAM,Flash memory
Technorati Tags: Phase Change Memory, PCM, PRAM, Flash memory
Stumble it!
Leave a Reply