Cheaper, more dense, more efficient, faster memory than current NAND Flash

[MrMxyzptlk]

Startup's 'RRAM' Tech Promises 1TB Memory for Mobile Devices

By Damon Poeter, PC Magazine
August 5, 2013 04:00pm EST


Crossbar RRAM

A California startup called Crossbar is working on an alternative to current NAND Flash memory chips like those used in mobile devices and other consumer electronics products.  [This new] technology could serve up a terabyte of storage and playback capacity on "an IC smaller than a postage stamp." [e.g. 1TB on 200mm², and they can stack chips in 3D to make blocks of them.]

Crossbar, which came out of stealth mode on Monday, calls its "new category of very high capacity and high-performance non-volatile memory" technology "Crossbar Resistive RAM," or RRAM, though several tech sites are dubbing it "ReRAM."

"This new generation of non-volatile memory will be capable of storing up to 1TB of data on a single 200mm2 chip, enabling massive amounts of information, such as 250 hours of HD movies, to be stored and played back from an IC smaller than a postage stamp," Crossbar said in a statement announcing its presence.

The startup also said it has already built a "working Crossbar memory array at a commercial fab, a major milestone in the development of new memory technology, signaling its readiness to begin the first phase of productization."

[Technogarble removed...]

"With our working Crossbar array, we have achieved all the major technical milestones that prove our RRAM technology is easy to manufacture and ready for commercialization. It's a watershed moment for the non-volatile memory industry."

The key benefits users will get from Crossbar's RRAM technology and the capability for "3D-stacking" of multiple chips in a System-on-a-Chip (SoC) package, per the company, are:

* Highest Capacity: Up to 1TB of storage on a single chip; multiple terabytes with 3D stacking
* Lowest Power: Extends Battery Life to Weeks, Months, or Years
* Highest Performance: 20x faster write than NAND [traditional method now in widespread use]
* Easiest SoC Integration: Simple stacking on logic in standard CMOS at most advanced nodes
* Most Reliable: 10x the endurance of NAND, approaching DRAM reliability

[Remainder of article removed.]


Expect earliest commercial availability of an even MORE advanced version in/by 2016. (Volume prices in 2017 at less than half the early prices, and higher densities, etc.)

Expect to see various names for this tech, such as: "Crossbar Resistive RAM," RRAM, and ReRAM....


1TB flash drives that fit on your fingernail!

Yowza! 

[BFM_Exodus]

I was reading this on Tom's Hardware.... sounds pretty flash!

[ËQINÖX]

This sounds like it could open up all kinds of new storage solutions and if its as small as they say it is  they could even have it directly plug into the motherboard like a add on storage chip thus removing the need for bulky 2.5 / 3.5 drives for mass storage.  Imagine the posibilitys a motherboard with say 6 RRAM chip slots for up to 6TB of storage directly on the motherboard.

[MrMxyzptlk]

This sounds like it could open up all kinds of new storage solutions and if its as small as they say it is  they could even have it directly plug into the motherboard like a add on storage chip thus removing the need for bulky 2.5 / 3.5 drives for mass storage.  Imagine the posibilitys a motherboard with say 6 RRAM chip slots for up to 6TB of storage directly on the motherboard.

Don't forget the possibilities of it being made "hot-plug-able," too.... 

[BFM_SüprM@ñ]

I think a certain Daft Punk song is in order...

[BFM_Booyah]

Do you have a link to some technogarble?  I am interested in how this differs from NAND architecture...at the logic gate level.  NAND architecture has always been known to NOT be the best performing architecture for memory.  It has been the standard architecture for so long because it is the simplest and cheapest to mass produce.  I am reading the Wiki on it now and, it may not be up to date, but it sounds like the unique challenges this new technology is facing is slowly being solved...but unless I am reading it wrong the way they are solving the new challenges (like parasitic current) is by introducing small bits of current architecture or technology.  They are also suggesting that it may be more suited to solving mass storage limitations than RAM type memory applications...that may change of course as the technology evolves.

The guys who come up with this stuff are amazing to me.  It is one thing to be an engineer who can build a massively complex machine...but the guys who develop this stuff are a unique mixture of engineer and artist.  They keep using the same small amount of raw materials and basic electronic functions...but they find more imaginative and "artistic" ways to rearrange them to do more, faster, better things that could never be done before.  I find it fascinating.