[Intel CTO of Flash Memory Ed Doller holds the first wafer of phase change memory (PCM) chips. Image via pcmag]

“The phase-change memory gets pretty close to Nirvana,” said Ed Doller, CTO of Intel’s flash memory group. “It will start to displace some of the RAM in the system.”

Flash memory (like pen drive and ofcourse your RAM chip) has invaded our systems and our lives completely. Thirst for more RAM is commonly seen these days in teens dying to play some real hardcore games. Pen Drive has become a de-facto for comfortable, easy to carry data transfer. And just when consumer was slowly accepting the advantages of flash memory Intel has predicted that its new technology Phase-Change Memory may replace flash completely by then end of 2007. Time to empty your dad’s pockets.

Flash memory relies on trapping and releasing electrons to store information. This process takes long 10 nanoseconds, but more importantly, leads to a limited number of read/write cycles.But PRAM technology works on a the principles of “chemistry”, changing a substance like chalcogenide from solid to liquid and measuring that state (similar to RW optical media, interestingly enough). Not only does this process take less time at 5ns, but it supports around 100 million write cycles. Plus, Intel is claiming their test models have a 10-year data retention rate at 85-degrees, making it feasible for archiving your pornography.

In another incident researchers at IBM’s labs demonstrated a prototype phase-change memory device that switched more than 500 times faster than flash while using less than one-half the power to write data into a cell. The IBM device’s cross-section is a minuscule 3 by 20 nanometers in size, far smaller than flash can be built today and equivalent to the industry’s chip-making capabilities targeted for 2015.

Intel touts PCM as a “new category of memory,” as its attributes are distinctly different, and typically superior to many of the memory technologies today as it combines the best attributes of RAM, NOR and NAND. Intel wouldn’t give a firm date on the availability of its phase-change memory as several details still need to be finalized after the sampling process.

“We’re going to be using this to allow customers to get familiar with the technology and help us architect the next generation device.” Doller said. “We’re hoping we can see [mass] production by the end of the year, but that depends on the customers.”

Source: DailyTech via gizmodo