The alphabet soup of different
flash memory technologies is already a little bewildering, but it looks like the latest entrant could end up being the most promising of all, with single chip storage capacities of 1TB expected within ten years. Called array-based memory, the tech has been under development at a company called Nanochip, Inc. for nearly 12 years, and it looks like the first working samples will go out next year. Although those first prototypes will have storage roughly equivalent to NAND flash at tens of gigs per circuit, the plan is to rapidly scale up to 100s of gigs and finally to 1TB on a single chip. Because the chips can be manufactured using conventional fabs and aren't subject to the same manufacturing constraints as traditional flash, they may also end up being far cheaper per gigabyte. The company is being funded by a number of prominent tech giants, including Intel, and says the tech can be used to improve everything from USB keys to SSDs to enterprise-grade servers -- wait, bigger, cheaper, and potentially better? Yeah, sign us up.
[Via
Slashdot]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
eggothewaffle @ Mar 21st 2008 6:53PM
Sign me up as well...But only when all the developers actually start using 64 bit operating systems :[
Brian @ Mar 21st 2008 6:56PM
what a wonderful time to be alive
asphixiated @ Mar 21st 2008 7:18PM
thats what i said 15 years ago when my 286 allowed me to do "word processing"
Rob Conway @ Mar 21st 2008 7:22PM
that has great implications for storage and RAM as well.
Chebwa @ Mar 21st 2008 7:16PM
Wow, and only 10 years away. I hope my hovercar will have a compatible in-dash system. And my walker.
Toadlet @ Mar 21st 2008 7:17PM
I'd probably be a little more interested if it didn't use *moving parts*.
Sacrilege, I say!
Labrador @ Mar 21st 2008 7:30PM
IBM tried to develop a similar technology called milliped and failed. I'm not holding my breath for this.
Will @ Mar 21st 2008 7:35PM
The latest entrant is always the most promising. That's the nature of technological development. Thing is, the latest entrant from 8 years ago, though less promising, is already in production. The latest entrant from today won't be for sale for a hell of a long time.
Fed @ Mar 21st 2008 7:52PM
Expect platter hard drives to be gone and dead within 3 years. Its about time.
usedHONDA @ Mar 21st 2008 8:22PM
Take THAT economic recession! Having such high-performing, high-capacity, and high-value electronics will definitely change the way we look a computing in the coming years.
Now if only Nokia will find the technology to make their Morph concept a reality... ;)
Forcewinder @ Mar 21st 2008 9:02PM
So in ten years I could build a computer with more RAM than HDD space? lol
Isaac @ Mar 21st 2008 9:15PM
I love the smell of vaporware in the morning.
Ethyriel @ Mar 21st 2008 9:51PM
These load leveling algorithms better be good.
Joseph @ Mar 21st 2008 10:22PM
I'm surprised Engadget didn't say, "L@@K!! in the future, there could be a 1TB iPhone!!"
n2b @ Mar 21st 2008 10:35PM
But the question is...are we really ready for 1TB in our pockets ??
tekdroid @ Mar 21st 2008 10:39PM
When is solid-state not solid-state? When it has moving probes and they talk of overcoming "tip wear". Har.
Yet another memory technology with a prototype a year away looking for more investment. Doing the media circuit.
I don't care that Intel and whoever is behind it. If technical hurdles have been solved, bring out a prototype, at the very least.
Great, existing NAND production can barely change, no new machines have to be bought, tra la laa, but there's gotta be a far better way to get things done than this, IMO. I think the real breakthroughs will come from another company(ies).
Pete Steege @ Mar 24th 2008 8:36AM
Agreed. Cool ideas, but it becomes interesting when it gets on the real-world on ramp and faces the music of reliability, cost, performance.
ScOObyDoo @ Mar 21st 2008 11:45PM
Uh...
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/12/nanochip-technology-offers-up-cheap-100gb-flash-memory-alternat/
Your other article even used the same graphic. Has something changed since the last time you posted it?
tekdroid @ Mar 22nd 2008 1:46AM
nice find, ScOObyDoo.
I too could've sworn I'd heard about this one before on these pages.
Shawn @ Mar 22nd 2008 2:25AM
In other news, the next version of Microsoft Windows will require a minimum system ram of 4gb. A spokeswoman also noted that a graphics card equivalent to two NVIDA 8800 GTS cards with 512mb of vram (each) would be needed for even the slightest web browsing and word processing.
Sam Winter @ Mar 22nd 2008 2:59AM
I'm not convinced about a flash replacement using MEMS... I know it's on the micro and even nano scale, but I still don't like the idea of moving parts, especially little read/write arrays.
Solid state ftw!
Dave @ Mar 22nd 2008 5:36AM
These type of news are just confirmations that we're staying on course for Moore's law. It's nice though.
Meltz @ Mar 22nd 2008 7:15PM
Isn't it a sign of the end when flash memory surpasses hard disks? That's gotta be in an old book somewhere...
Pete Steege @ Mar 24th 2008 8:37AM
Cool idea, but I'll get truly excited when it faces the real world tests that flash is undergoing today. It's one thing to claim a terabyte, its another to make one that's reliable, affordable and works in a real machine.