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Intel and Numonyx have started a joint venture with STMicroelectonics in developing a new mass-market version of technology called phase-change memory to materialize of having small size and large capacity chips.
Phase-change technology is a concept used by Gordon Moore, which is used to store data on rewritable DVDs and CDs.
In this process, the researchers followed two steps. Firstly, they built a grid of wires into the chip so a computer can easily control the writing of a 1 or 0 in each of the 64 million memory cells. Second, they stacked the layers to make a pack of dense memory in a given volume.
The chip contains the phase-change memory built atop it and it can be controlled by using rows and columns of wires that lead through the chip. This process combines conventional computer memory’s high speed with flash memory’s low cost, low power demands, and high capacity.
Operating systems today must constantly work to keep important information in memory while relegating the rest to "virtual memory" stored on hard drives--or, these days, an intermediate layer in the hierarchy, solid state disks made of flash memory. Deciding what goes where is complicated, and priorities change from one moment to the next.
Al Fazio, Intel's director of memory technology development said, "At Intel, we see this as an important milestone in enabling a future class of memory where you can combine attributes of memory semantics and storage semantics, potentially collapsing the technologies into one memory type."
"The research is very promising in delivering that," he added.
