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Hardware

MRAM in 2004? 321

Posted by michael from the holy-grail dept.
amberspry writes "As previously reported here and here. Wired has yet another update on MRAM here. They give hope by mid-2004 we will see devices with faster boot up times and using less power as a 'vastly accelerated timetable is being implemented.' Gotta love joint ventures."
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MRAM in 2004? More

MRAM in 2004?

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  • Magnetic memory? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:21PM (#6913409) Homepage Journal
    I'm sure there probably isn't anything to worry about, but isn't there a chance of problems if you put magnetic things near storage media?

    • Re:Magnetic memory? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tomstdenis ( 446163 ) <tomstdenis AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:26PM (#6913461) Homepage
      I don't think the field is that big.

      Besides any conductor with a current generates a magnetic field.... [well there are probably exceptions... I'm not an EE or PHYS dude].

      I think the MRAM guys are talking way small scale here :-)

      tom

    • Re:Magnetic memory? (Score:4, Funny)

      by captain_craptacular ( 580116 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:32PM (#6913530)
      Screw storage media, I'm afraid my boxen will all fly off and stick to the front of the refrigerator...

    • Re:Magnetic memory? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      [..] but isn't there a chance of problems if you put magnetic things near storage media?

      Of course, but these units generate a pretty wee field I'd imagine. :) My concerns relate to having a strong field near the MRAM. For example, at work we have several MRI machines, the largest being 11.7T. In the room there are lines on the floor which show the field map. Would one of these units choke nearby?

      As it stands now we have to keep the magnet controllers (SGI O2s and Octanes mainly) well away from the magne

      • Re:Magnetic memory? (Score:3, Informative)

        by imsabbel ( 611519 )
        Well, you need a HECK of a B-Field to scramble these Rams. Their storage elements are placed in a sandwitch between the conductor grid and reference magnets, so they are shielded from both sides. They should survive everything your electronic device survives today. I guess you leave your pda outside when you go near the nmr, because iron isnt something you want near a 11.7T magnet :)
    • This has been the case throughout the history of fixed storage. You can also erase hard drives, floppy drives and tape with magnets.

      Nothing new, move along.

  • Ooh more vaporware. (Score:4, Funny)

    by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:23PM (#6913434)
    I'm glad to see that the hardware industry is producing vaporware now and that vaporware is not exclusive to the software industry.

    BTW didn't Bill Gates promise instant booting PCs five or so years ago? My new machine takes a full two minutes to boot.
    • See what I don't get is why can they flash the memory after a successfull boot to disk. Then the next time you boot you read the 50 or so MB off disk [which would take all of 10 seconds max] and boom start executing [like a resume-from-ram thingy]

      Why the need to load/parse all the startup scripts over and over for each boot when they should all be the same....

      and yes, I'm filing for a patent on this idea. [NOT!]

      Tom

      • Re:Ooh more vaporware. (Score:3, Informative)

        by pbox ( 146337 )
        Well, the Plug and Play devices all need to re-initialized. That takes time...

      • Re:Ooh more vaporware. (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The system would have to assume that quite a lot of things are unchanged from boot to boot. Have you ever suspended a modern operating system (with a disk cache) and dualbooted to another OS before loading up the first OS again? Data-loss big time.
    • That's ok, the hardware industry pioneered the idea of vapourware. I mean, how many of you have used write only memory [art-of-int...dating.com] yet? Have you even SEEN it yet?

      And that was in the 70s... Things haven't gotten better!
    • well, he didnt make instant booting, but Be almost did. ~20 seconds max to boot beos is close enough to instant for me.

  • 'windows' mentioned in article. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mark19960 ( 539856 ) <MarkNO@SPAMlowcountrybilling.com> on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:27PM (#6913465) Journal
    "...simply reach out and touch an on/off button to turn off Windows in lieu of going through a ritualized shut-down procedure."
    who says we will be running windows by then?
    I hope not....

    • I don't know about anybody else, but for me waiting for windows to start up is not usually caused by the PC having been powered down.

      I'm sure I would have to boot windows just as often with this technology as I do now.

    • The interesting Windows comment to me was may even, someday, allow us to simply reach out and touch an on/off button to turn off Windows in lieu of going through a ritualized shut-down procedure."

      Except Windows makes a bunch of registry writes upon shutdown, and writes to the logs, and formally terminates background process allowing them to make any log entries they choose to, and......

  • should be interesting (Score:5, Funny)

    by Maskirovka ( 255712 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:27PM (#6913467)
    I can't wait to be called out to degaus someone's ram after their system crashes.

  • can't wait (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doesn't_Comment_Code ( 692510 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:27PM (#6913471)

    I can't wait till this technology can permanantly remember data. AND it gets cheap enough to replace the spinning hard drive. Speeding up the memory read/write times and reducing the memory bottleneck could effect your pc much more than upgrading from a 1.8 ghz to a 2.0 ghz processor.
    • Ya, then if my fancy new program goes fandango on core, I get to re-install my operating system. Swe-et!

      Lets, hope there will be reasonable measures taken to keep this memory safe when access is "fast and random".
    • Yeah but I'd much rather see this implemented with the carbon nanotube memory module hardware vaporware than the MRAM not much faster than quad piped DDR vaporware.
  • "How many people keep their computer on 24 hours a day simply because they can't stand to sit around for four or five minutes waiting for it to boot up?"

    Well, geez. If I kept the SPARC on all day I think it'd melt right through the table. To say nothing of the fact that I couldn't hold a conversation without yelling.

    Not that I can, anyway, actually.

    • "How many people keep their computer on 24 hours a day simply because they can't stand to sit around for four or five minutes waiting for it to boot up?"


      I leave my cpu on 24/7. I generally reboot about once every month or two just to give the little sucker a minute long break. It has nothing to do with booting though. I just have it running processes for me while I'm gone, like rendering images or backing up data. I have the cover off and a box fan sitting next to it permenantly. It's cheaper than e
      • I would advise against this. As many sysadmins know if your HDD's are used to being at a raised temperature they bearing will expand and create a groove in their track. Once you power them down a HDD that has been running flawlessly for years will often fail to spin up again after only a few minutes downtime. This is probably not a problem for more modern liquid bearing drives.
    • "How many people keep their computer on 24 hours a day simply because they can't stand to sit around for four or five minutes waiting for it to boot up?"

      Actually, I keep mine on 24 hours a day to see how much uptime I can accumulate. I had my windows box up for over 30 days before the last power outage in my area. Power outages are actually the limiting factor in my uptimes, especially for my OpenBSD boxen. Even better than simply storing data permanently would be if MRAM also stored reserve energy to
    • I used to keep my computer on 24/7. Then I put it in my bedroom. Did I mention I have a big-ass server case with six fans? Nowadays, I'd rather wait the three minutes for boot-up and get a decent night's sleep; I'm funny like that.

  • w00t! (Score:3, Funny)

    by JoeLinux ( 20366 ) <joelinux.gmail@com> on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:28PM (#6913480)
    This is damn sexy technology. Almost makes up for the vaporware that was Keele Memory systems. And if I hear one more whiny person say, "no, quantum computers are coming in two years! Have patience!" I think I'll go destroy something expensive...

    • Re:w00t! (Score:2, Funny)

      by sbma44 ( 694130 )
      if I hear one more whiny person say, "no, quantum computers are coming in two years! Have patience!" I think I'll go destroy something expensive...

      But they are coming... to the basement of a secret NSA facility near you!

  • More Info (Score:5, Informative)

    by Remlik ( 654872 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:29PM (#6913488) Homepage
    A little more indepth view of MRAM can be read here. [howstuffworks.com]

    Does anyone know if MRAM will be sensative to external magnets? Aka if I bump my portable mp3/ogg player into a giant fridge mag will I lost my data?

  • BeOS (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I timed BeOS on my new machine. It gets from power on to fully usable desktop in just under 16 seconds. Too bad the only thing it's good for anymore is booting fast :-(
    • Any OS, when you cut ALL usefull functions from, becomes good only for booting fast. I did it with Linux: bellow 30 seconds. And even with SCO Open Server: bellow a minute.
    • My old 8-bit Atari (1200XL, not that anyone asked) could "boot" (no DOS) in about two seconds.

  • I'm not sure how accurate this statement is. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Prince_Ali ( 614163 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:30PM (#6913502) Journal
    "How many people keep their computer on 24 hours a day simply because they can't stand to sit around for four or five minutes waiting for it to boot up?" he asked. "I don't think anyone has researched that particular issue, but I'll bet there are a lot of them.

    Most people will just grab a beverage or something during the minute (or less) it takes most PCs to startup. I would think most of the people who keep their PCs on 24/7 do it for P2P or [Seti|Folding]@home or possibly to prevent wear and tear on the hard drive (spinning up the hard drive wears it down faster than anything).

    • Re:I'm not sure how accurate this statement is. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nosilA ( 8112 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:45PM (#6913690)
      It's not the short amount of time it takes to boot up, but the amount of time it takes to log in, start various applications, connect to various computers, etc. That's all interactive and a big pain. Unfortunately, this wouldn't keep me from having to log back into all of the various ssh sessions I have open, but it would help somewhat.
    • I have two systems under my desk that run 24/7. The reason they are always on? So that I start working the instant that my butt hits the chair nothing more. I do not like to wait for the machine to boot. I also do not like to wait for several minutes while the machine shuts down and restarts because some process went into a Z or D state and is gumming up the works.

      3:44pm up 42 days, 22:59, 6 users, load average: 0.13, 0.26, 0.31
    • Well, when a PC boots up you also lose all the applications you had running, and that's more than a few minutes' loss of work. Even if you save everything before shutting down you still won't have all the right windows / Emacs buffers / web pages open. Suspend to hard disk can alleviate this, but even there you worry about network connections and strange things that can go wrong on restore.

      Hmm, what's my argument here? MRAM would be just as bad as suspending to disk, only a bit faster. And if suspendin
      • And if suspending to disk is not popular now (I don't know anyone who does it for desktop systems

        Now you do.

        Booting via hibernate in windows seems 10 times faster than normal booting, and having those windows still up is a nice thing. Don't do it at work cause I run Linux, but at home it works great.

        I can't wait til I can use the 2.6 kernel and this functionality. I just hope the distro makers integrate this functionality nicely.
    • Damn straight. I don't leave my machine on 24x7, but do leave it on most of the time I'm home.

      I have a simple morning routine...
      • Wake up
      • Turn computer on
      • relieve bladder, shower and other personal stuff, put on underwear
      • log on
      • get fully dressed
      • computer up and ready. Shut off before I go to work

      And another when I get home

      • Turn computer on
      • relieve bladder, get necessary nutrients for evening (Hot Pockets!!!!)
      • log on
      • change clothes to shorts and tshirt. Get Hot Pockets from microwave
      • computer up and r
        • Wake up
        • Turn computer on
        • relieve bladder, shower and other personal stuff, put on underwear
        • log on

        When I get to work at 9 EST/EDT, log on and start reading Slashdot, there's always a vague feeling of creepiness from the fact that every post that isn't from a European is from some nerd sitting in his underwear. At least Mr. Callaway empties his bladder before posting.

    • Re:I'm not sure how accurate this statement is. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kaa ( 21510 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @04:00PM (#6913871) Homepage
      I would think most of the people who keep their PCs on 24/7 do it for P2P or [Seti|Folding]@home or possibly to prevent wear and tear on the hard drive (spinning up the hard drive wears it down faster than anything).

      All of my many boxes (with the exception of laptops) are on 24/7. The main reason is to save wear and tear on components. For solid-state devices the main killer is thermal stress. Thermal stress occurs when the device either warms up or cools down and not shutting the machine down avoids it. Not completely -- an idle chip generates significantly less heat than a busy one -- but it helps a great deal. Not having to spin up and down the hard drive is also in the same category.

      Besides a lot of my boxes are micro-servers: a shared directory here, a shared printer there...

      Not having to wait for the machines to boot is just a free bonus.
    • Why would someone turn 'off' their PC if they don't turn off their TV?

      Leave the machine (in my case, a Mac) in standby, just like a TV. Touch a key, the power button, or the remote, and it switches on in less than 2 seconds...

      From all external appearances, my Mac is off, except for the glowing power button.
    • (spinning up the hard drive wears it down faster than anything).

      wow nice piece of FUD.

      spinning up a hard drive does NOT add extra wear to it. in fact leaving it spinning for 20 hours so you can use it for the other 4 hours is causing more damage than anything else can, let along causing it to heat up more (most harddrives are overheated anyways as they are crammed in a small case with no fans blowing on them.)

      shut your computer down when you are not using it. make your computer live longer and save so
      • There are different usage models, you know, without calling someone out on FUD.

        My Mac, for example... on 24/7, goes to sleep after three hours.

        Goes from something like 120W during average use, to 80W with monitor in sleep, and then to 9W when the whole system goes to sleep. Possibly less.

        However, one thing that I don't have to deal with every morning is loading an OS, loading apps into memory, and the extra disk access as part of that process, since it's all already in memory.

        So in one compromise situat

    • I would think most of the people who keep their PCs on 24/7 do it for P2P or [Seti|Folding]@home or possibly to prevent wear and tear on the hard drive

      Let's not forget the mailserver duties. I coalesce 8 different mail accounts into one mailbox and a buttload of mail folders so I can read it from offsite via ssh (and X forwarding if I have my cygwin lappie with me). It also means I never have to wait for my mail to download, even the few seconds needed by DSL.

      I'm so 1337!

  • 2004? Isn't this the same year nanRAM was supposed to show up? I'd rather ditch anything mechanical or magnetical in favour of stuff that doesn't deteriorate or move.

  • This technology reads like it is based on the old
    Magnetic Bubble technology. Late 70s / early 80s.
    Except Bubble memory cards were about the size of an IDE Drive.
  • This memory get's rid of the need to save your settings to the hard disk as you power down. But when your computer dies, you don't want the "bad" settings saved to the hard disk.

    It will be interesting to see the new breeds of virus that this brings out.
    • This memory get's rid of the need to save your settings to the hard disk as you power down.

      More hardware to get around software problems. What settings are you talking about? Isn't persistant data supposed to be written to the harddisk when the changes are made? When I'm done editing a file, I save it and exit the program. Ever since linux's ext3 journaling filesystem, I actually prefer to shutdown machines with the power button. Note that these are simple compute nodes. Its difficult to walk across

  • Interference (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rkane ( 465411 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:32PM (#6913531) Homepage Journal
    Does this mean that when my cell phone rings, my speakers AND my RAM are going to go nuts?

    Will my pc run faster if it is facing polar north?
    • "Will my pc run faster if it is facing polar north?"

      does it now? duh, your computer already uses magnetic recording techniques and they're SHIELDED. just like this memory will have to be.
    • I've seen CRTs go a little weird when my phone rings as well.
    • The magnetic domains for this kind of things are EXTREMELY powerfull but very small in scope. Modern HDD's can't be erased fully even with the DeGaussing coils that the navy uses to remove charge from their battleships. This ram will be the same way, field strengths many times more powerfull than any fixed magnet but small enough that they do not interfere with adjacent cells.

  • Power (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jargoone ( 166102 )
    This would be a great thing for power bills as well.

    Lots of times you want to keep a machine up all the time, like in my case when it's serving up a webpage or two and acting as a print server. But I'm sure there are also plenty of people who leave their machines on all the time just to avoid the startup/shutdown time. I know I do it with my laptop just to avoid the un-hibernation.

    With power supplies averaging, oh, 300 or so watts, that can mean decent savings when you figure it running 24x7.

    • Re:Power (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Heck, I ran my win98 box 24/7 just so the damn thing would keep working.

      Please read the following EULA carefully. You are allowed one (1) bootup and one (1) shutdown per licence...

    • Re:Power (Score:4, Informative)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:51PM (#6913767) Journal
      With power supplies averaging, oh, 300 or so watts, that can mean decent savings when you figure it running 24x7.

      Arggh.. Someone else who doesn't know how a switching power supply works. 300Watts means thats the maximum amount of power it can deliver before it melts down. It doesn't mean your computer is using 300watts constantly.

      And DRAM's power usage is miniscule compared to CPU or disk drive motors. But then, since the CPU is mostly idle (unless you run seti@home or something like that) and drives spin down when not in use, most of juice is being used by the CRT.

      I dont know exactly what they're trying to pitch here, except something else to compete with flashram.

      • And DRAM's power usage is miniscule compared to CPU or disk drive motors. But then, since the CPU is mostly idle (unless you run seti@home or something like that) and drives spin down when not in use, most of juice is being used by the CRT.

        And you can set your CRT to go into standby as well, lowering the consumption of electricity even further! :)

      • Arggh.. Someone else who doesn't know how a switching power supply works. 300Watts means thats the maximum amount of power it can deliver before it melts down. It doesn't mean your computer is using 300watts constantly.

        Yes, this is a point that most people don't understand: your computer's power usage is constantly changing

        A typical desktop machine sold today may have a 300 watt power supply, but the total typical power usage will be around 150 watts, in use, with the monitor on. Power usage peaks f

  • Faster startup times? Whatever... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Plasmic ( 26063 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:34PM (#6913562)
    From the article:

    faster startup times for computers, PDAs and cell phones
    Clearly, my computer will startup no faster than it does when coming out of Standby mode (which stores the state of my computer in RAM, but requires that the PC remain plugged in). So, what do I gain? Basically, we get Standby mode that works even when you unplug the computer. And, that's still no improvement to the "startup time".

    So, who needs their cell phone or PDA to startup faster? Most of these devices are pulling straight from some flavor of RAM during startup, already.

    How often do you reset your iPaq? Just when it crashes, and it only takes 5 seconds, anyhow.

    What about that annoying startup time on your cell phone? Let's see, only when the battery falls out do I ever exercise that feature.

    If MRAM is really 6 times faster than today's static RAM, that's wonderful, but it will have little impact on startup times (see Hard Drive I/O-blocking).

    • Re:Faster startup times? Whatever... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ed Avis ( 5917 ) <ed@membled.com> on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:47PM (#6913718) Homepage
      I don't think you're seeing the big picture. If MRAM can store data persistently, that means no more need for a hard disk (backups happen over the network). A big cause of failure, noise and expense is cut out immediately, at least for systems that don't need to store large amounts of data locally.

      You could just boot the machine from a Knoppix CD - or the equivalent for Windows - and save your files into MRAM. This assumes MRAM can mature to the point where it is no more unreliable than a hard disk, which shouldn't be too difficult.
    • I'm guessing that they're *saying* it's going to be cheaper. But I bet as soon as it becomes a standard, prices will be at least double what normal RAM is.

  • More info... (Score:5, Informative)

    by PSaltyDS ( 467134 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:34PM (#6913563) Journal
    Here's a better link for more info on MRAM [howstuffworks.com]. Pretty graphic of an MRAM cell.

  • Still won't help Windows (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thepacketmaster ( 574632 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:37PM (#6913601) Homepage Journal
    MRAM is designed to allow programs and data to remain in the local memory and may even, someday, allow us to simply reach out and touch an on/off button to turn off Windows in lieu of going through a ritualized shut-down procedure.

    Except for the fact that due to all the memory leaks and other programming issues in Windows, you'll still need to do your daily hard reboot. This will just make it slightly faster.

    • Linux is not immune from memory leaks (or any other software problems for that matter).
    • Huh? I haven't rebooted my WinNT PC since December 2002!

      Did you know when a process terminates, it gives it's memory back to the global heap? Most memory leaks are due to bad applications (that don't use system PageAlloc commands), and don't use up OS memory if terminated.

      Your ignorance explains your cynicism.

    • All popular OSs have memory/resource leak problems. Even my OS X laptop gets s-l-o-w after a few days or weeks of use, and logging out and back in speeds it up again. I notice it most when I use anything from MS Office, for some reason...

      Almost all of this can be laid at the feet of pervasive use of languages that require manual memory and resource management. Writing leak-free-C is apparently beyond most normal mortal programmers, or even the wizards who write things like Apple's Quartz layer or XFree8

  • Great news! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:38PM (#6913621)
    I just can't for that new memory does ... does, er.. hmm, what does it do again?

  • What was a wasted 60 seconds (Score:3, Funny)

    by BigGar' ( 411008 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:39PM (#6913628) Homepage
    is now 60 seconds of pr0n viewing. Viewing time that would have been lost to oblivion. Thank The Maker.

  • Motorola (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chia_monkey ( 593501 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:39PM (#6913629) Journal
    I don't want to sound too cynical here, but I just can't seem to get so excited about Motorola working on new innovative technology and continuing on with it. I remember when Motorola phones were the way to go. Even more dramatic an example though is the whole PPC chip. There was once a time the chips they produced for the Macs were just slightly slower than Intel's chips (in terms of MHz...but we all know that doesn't really matter for true performance). But then they seemed to take naps that lasted for years while AMD and Intel kept improving chip speed and performance. Sure...Motorola may be working on this now, but from what we've seen in the past, I wouldn't be surprised to see them resting on their laurels and letting the world pass them by yet again.
    • They [Motorola] used to make great televisions and monitors as well...yet another market they lost...
    • This is unrelated, but I bought a Motorola Voice / Fax / Modem device once. It went in for service and the audio jacks needed for voice modem use were removed! I can't figure out why they did that other than sheer stupidity. It looked like the jacks were desoldered and the holes taped over with a Motorola logo sticker, so it's not as if they simply sent me the wrong modem back.

  • Magnetic data huh ? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:41PM (#6913652)
    Strange, my computer crashes each time I hit the "degauss" button on my monitor ...
  • Unlike conventional high-speed memory devices, MRAM uses magnetism instead of electrical charges to store data -- making it, in a sense, a back-to-the-future technology

    Does this mean that our 60 gigabyte hard drives will be replaced with 60 jigabyte hard drives?
    :)
  • Consumer benefits could include faster startup times for computers,
    PDAs and cell phones
    Because, you know, my PalmVx just doesn't start up fast enough. I just want that thing to be ON before I even let go of the power button.
    • Well, rebooting a Palm generally does take a while, but since that's only necessary when a program crashes, this wouldn't be useful. However, MRAM might be useful in that it would retain information even if you forget to change/charge the batteries. But I remember hearing that using MRAM requires more energy, and with all new PDAs having colour screens and overpowered processors, it's difficult enough to find a PDA with a decent battery life.
  • Is Rambus involved? I didn't see any mention of Rambus, but someone might want to check... your backside for a knife... er... I mean check the US Patent Office to see if they've patented the IP.

  • pure marketing drivel (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Phantom Gremlin ( 161961 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @03:57PM (#6913837)
    The story is almost worthless marketing drivel. How about answers to some very basic questions like:

    What is the capacity?

    What is "extremely dense" in quantitative terms, and how do they achieve it?

    If it's really going to be a "universal RAM replacement", how does it compare with the 512 Mb DRAMs recently announced?

    There are many more similar questions, but answers to these three would be a start.

  • I can see it now, the hordes of inept that were suckered into forwarding e-mails in hopes of obtaining $10 for each e-mail (because it was being traced by the new e-mail tracing thing!), and deleting that obscure Windows system utility because it was a virus, can now be suckered into purging their computers of evil bugs by simply "resetting" the MRAM by holding large magnets to the side of their computers!

  • Ferrite Core Redux! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) * on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @04:16PM (#6914068) Homepage Journal
    I'm struck by how much the HowStuffWorks picture of MRAM memory (* [howstuffworks.com]) looks like the donut-on-a-wire ferrite core memory [science.uva.nl]. All that's missing are the 150-ohm terminating resistors.

    I like the idea of a HD-less instant-on PC. One of the great things about my Palm Pilot is that the kids can turn it on and off without any "shutdown" process... although all my kids have known how to shut down Windows properly since they could understand the "To turn off press Start" concept.

    On the other hand, it's already hard enough to restart a locked-up PC when the so-called power switch doesn't have anything to do with the power. How will I fix a PC when pulling the plug doesn't even reboot the OS?
  • 'Unlike conventional high-speed memory devices, MRAM uses magnetism instead of electrical charges to store data -- making it, in a sense, a back-to-the-future technology based on the same laws of physics that enabled the creation of audio and videotape recorders as well as hard drives.''

    To say nothing of drums and original core memory!
  • For those wondering what the use would be of an instantly rebootable computer, they obvously haven't been on the phone with NTL support asking you to reboot your machine after every change.
    Or they're not running mission critical servers were every minute of downtime costs thousands of units of whatever strong currency you're using.

    But fast or not, it will not last. I mean, sure I can (could: I haven't tried) boot Windows 3.1 on my 1.4 GHz P4 in 3 seconds flat, but so what? Microsoft is going to always use

  • Remember Ferroelectric memory? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by chasm!killer ( 240191 ) on Tuesday September 09, 2003 @04:45PM (#6914392)
    Does this remind anyone but me of the ferroelectric memory cells of about a decade ago?

    Smaller than DRAM cells, faster than SRAM and nonvolatile as well. They did actually make it out into the real world, several devices made today include a dozen or so F-RAM cells, but they certainly did not take over the world.

    One thing that does shout "vaporware" to me is that the articles I can find are all really sparse on details.

    Also, how compatible is this technology with common (or esoteric, for that matter) silicon technology? If it's not, can we use the same technology to build processors, etc.?

    How soon do we actually get to see a 256 MBit MRAM device? How much will it cost in 2005? The answer to those questions will tell me a lot about whether this is enough to make people show interest in Motorola's stock again....
  • My biggest question is... I'm planning on a major upgrade to my system in the next few months for *cough*Half Life 2*coughcough* important personal reasons. Is this going to be cheap enough that I'd be better off waiting 6+ months instead of going with what's currently on the market? I'm certainly not going to drop everything just because new tech becomes available...

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