Intel Heading for Phase Change

[Jimmy 2004]

Recent roadmaps from Intel have suggested that the company intends to mass produce phase change memory by the end of 2007, allowing consumers to sample this new form of storge. Phase change memory, or PCM, is expected to succeed flash memory as the major non-volatile memory, being both faster and smaller. PCM is also more reliable - flash memory can degrade after as few as 10,000 writes, whilst PCM can last for over 100 million write cycles. Intel licensed the technology from Ovonyx in 2000, with IBM, Macronix and Qimonda announcing strong developments in the technology towards the end of last year. Intel hasn't set any firm dates yet, but phase change memory could be just around the corner.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Apocolypse007]

Great news! but what kind of motherboard supports this memory? and how expensive will it be?

 

[WarEagleAU]

When I Saw this, I thought they were going to phase change cooling en masse. That would have been sweet, awesome cooling for ocing and its cheaper. With this new memory, will it replace DDR or anything?

 

[Jadawin]

Erm. If you read it again, you will notice that it's supposed to replace FLASH memory, e.g. SD cards, memory in USB sticks etc.

 

[Completely Bonkers]

Interesting. I wonder what the speed is compared to flash... and manufaturing cost... to consumer prices. Keep us posted

 

[evil bill]

Was there not chat about future HDDs having Flash or PCM memory built in for use with Vista and its Robson stuff?

EDIT: ah, like the Samsung thread 2 below this

 

[Mussels]

As evil bill said - i think this is more for hard drives with inbuilt cache ram.

The samsung one just posted earlier is a great example... flash ram would only last 2-3 years at most there, depending on the drives use. "flash memory can degrade after as few as 10,000 writes" and all that.