Flash memory is dead, new 1,000 times faster 'phase-change' memory debuts

High-capacity memory devices are the premier choice of the most of the consumers as well as manufacturers, and various companies are working assiduously to develop such devices for quite a time. A team of scientists from IBM, Macronix (from Taiwan) and Qimonda (Germany based company) has proclaimed a huge advancement in computer memory technology, as they claimed to develop a material that can increase the memory of future MP3 players, digital cameras and other devices about 500 to 1,000 times faster than your present gadgets and that too using just half of the energy.

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Spike Narayan, IBM senior manager of nanoscale science asserted about the new technology:

You can do a lot of things with this phase-change memory that you can't do with flash. You can replace disks, do instant-on computers, or carry your own fancy computer application in your hand. It would complement smaller technology if manufacturers wanted to conjure things up.

The hot innovation (phase-change memory technology) possibly uses a practice where GS material can be transformed from a fluid to the crystalline shape through heating, and uses laser beams for your CD writer to store and recover data.

There lies a tiny mass of alloy at the core of the phase-change memory devices that can be transformed quickly amid a planned, crystalline phase and a tangled, amorphous phase; and the phase-change memory is non-volatile, as no electrical power is requisite to uphold any phase of the material. This is the major characteristic to give the new technology an obvious edge over conventional memory devices, as conventional devices mainly are based on the presence or absence of electrical charge restricted in a small area of a cell and use inherently leaky memory cells for constant power that grounds the major failure of stored information, in case of power interruption.

Wilhelm Beinvogl, Qimonda vice president said,

We have demonstrated the potential of the phase-change memory technology on very small dimensions laying out a scalability path. Phase-change memories have the clear potential to play an important role in future memory systems.

The new technology certainly is a great improvement over conventional devices that not only will surpass the flash memory and impose a serious threat on the disk drives to stay alive in the fray for supremacy, but will help to develop potent memory devices even in a smaller dimension.

Via: Yahoo!