IBM Partners Developing New Memory Technology

IBM teams with Infineon, Macronix on replacement for flash memory chips

IBM on Monday announced that it was working with Infineon Technologies and Macronix International to develop memory technology that could in the future replace flash memory chips in computers and portable storage devices.

Phase-Change Memory (PCM) technology uses a special material, called phase-change material, to store memory data. It can change its structure from an amorphous to a crystalline state by using electrons to pass energy through the material, said Chung Lam, manager of the PCM project at IBM.

Computer memory stores data in the form of zeros and ones. With PCM technology, the material's state represents this information, with an amorphous form, or indefinite structure, representing 0 and a crystalline, or definite, structure representing 1.

PCM offers several advantages over flash memory technology, including greater reliability, Lam said. It does not use floating gates, which flash memory chips use to store information. This makes PCM faster and more reliable. "It is more reliable because there are no moving parts involved like in flash memory. We can change the status [of material] without floating gates," he said.

Flash memory uses floating gates to store electrons, which represents the binary data. With PCM, resistors are used instead of floating gates, he said.

"Floating gate stores a large number of electrons. More than a thousand electrons [in flash memory] represent one state of binary. In PCM, the resistance of the material represents the binary data. PCM stores 1 and 0 in the state of material," Lam said.

PCM will provide quicker read and write capabilities than flash memory, Lam said. In PCM, "you can directly write without erase. In flash memory, you need to erase before you can write," he said. Even if the device containing PCM is shut down, the memory retains data, making it nonvolatile memory. Flash memory is also a non-volatile memory type.

Research on the technology is in its early stages, and PCM could hit the market in three to five years, Lam said. "We are looking at it as a research project, whether we can actually make any memory as [fast] or faster than flash memory," he said. It could be used in products ranging from servers to consumer electronics, according to the company.

IBM has in the past worked with Germany-based Infineon Technologies on memory technologies, Lam said. Taiwan-based Macronix brings in manufacturing expertise, he said.

Twenty to 25 employees from the three companies will be dedicated to the PCM research, which will be conducted at IBM's research centers in Yorktown Heights, New York, and San Jose, California, according to IBM.

The Soruce Article: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/


I think this article shows us that computer technalogiy developing in right way!! and im very glad of that, i like very thing touching on ITs!! and it was good news for me when i read it!!!


Edited December 16, 2006 by WeaponX (see edit history)

nice, I can't wait until they actually get this chip into the market. If its also possible to make the storage capacity high enough, I hope it also replaces clunky hard drives.xboxrulz

nice, I can't wait until they actually get this chip into the market. If its also possible to make the storage capacity high enough, I hope it also replaces clunky hard drives.
xboxrulz

Did not see the delay. If you can't wait, and have to wait some tens of years...

Dear webmaster!

rather off-topic, isn't it ?

Well the topic starter plagerised content from infoworld.com (you MUST enclose it in QUOTE tags) and xOBEUSx is a spammer. It just gets better...

Edited December 13, 2006 by twitch (see edit history)

rather off-topic, isn't it ?

Spammer!

But yeah, this technology sounds cool.

Hey Aka_bar, use quotes next time.

kardfertew please post in English.@yordan: It's in Russian. I kinda figured it out by looking at the original poster's email address.It says .ru, so it's Russia.EDIT: whoops, sorry Yordan, I accidentally deleted ur post because it doubled. The system registered it as one post.EDIT2: the post was a spammer's post in Russian. Deleted.xboxrulz

This PCM technology sounds fine from that... But there's no mention on the storage density. How much storage space can they pack in a say compact flash sized card? Or is the speed this technology's only forte? And what about the production costs? Flash memories have been on the market for awhile and there's a huge demand and huge production numbers for them, which has dropped their price a lot. Can we expect this kind of technology have chance in the markets if it will cost multiples of the flash memory prices. Sorry for my sceptism, actually I think this is good news. I believe this technology could have lot of uses with mobile phones for example. The current phones using flash memory are somewhat suffering from the slowish speed of the memory.xboxrulz, could you remove all the off topic posts in this thread. Including the discussion of "offtopic" and spam.

what I would personnally like to know is, how many times a structure change from amorphous to cristalline stat can occur.This means - how long will such a device be able to work ?Remember, how long a CDR-W can work and reman erasable - not so many times, indeed, compared to the number of times you write down and erase files on your hard drive. So, flascards are used as disk drives today. would yo like to see your flashcard endup behaving like a CD-ROM, ending like a scratched CD ?

Edited December 16, 2006 by yordan (see edit history)

[off topic]ehmmmmm... nice spam... [/off topic]Semiconductor memories are in constant evolution, new materials and structures are developed every day to make aour lives easier :PSo this new is not realy relevant from my point of view. Anyway it's nice to see that many people are interested on this.

HMM!!!Why is this post attracting SOO much abuse today? Ive deleted 4 replies now banend one person and warned two others for posting spam on this thread!~!

and its only this topic that keeps getting the spam.xboxrulz