Intel to Sample Flash-killer PRAM This Year

Station writes "Intel's new phase-change memory technology (PRAM) will begin sampling this year. Samsung, IBM, and Hitachi are all working on phase-change memory as a successor to flash as it has a lower (~20ns) read latency than flash (50-90ns). 'Intel says they plan to ship the first PRAM modules as a straight-ahead NOR flash replacement so that they can work the kinks out of the design before trying to move it up the memory hierarchy. The company claims a much higher number of read-write cycles (100 million) than flash, as well as a potential 10 years' worth of data retention. NOR flash is typically used as program storage memory for mobile devices like cell phones, while more durable but slower NAND flash is used for mass storage in devices like the iPod nano.'"

Re:How does this compare to NOR flash in other way

[asliarun]

Generally speaking, cost will be similar to NOR flash, if volume manufacturing picks up, and especially if Intel, Samsung, and other biggies get into the act. The key questions to ask are reliability/life of data and speed (and power consumption, if it is drastically different). From Intel's claims, reliability (or longevity) of data looks amazing for PRAM, but speed is still an unanswered question... both read and write speeds.

My other lay question is how Intel and others are managing this chalc* glass manufacturing in their usual silicon DRAM process. Is this glass fused/bonded to silicon or something?

Re:A day late and a dollar short

[tomstdenis]

If their designs are pin compatible, good luck not not replacing it.

Let's see faster, more durable, *and* drop in compatible? Short of insane license requirements I can't see it being a no sale.

Tom

Re:A day late and a dollar short

[squizzar]

So were 5.25", 3.5" floppies, zip disks, cd-rw, dvd-rw etc. If the cost is right and the benefits are great enough it will be adopted. If they package it in similar formats to that flash currently uses (eg. usb sticks, sd cards) for portable storage, and stick a SATA interface on it for internal (or even bulk external) storage, it will be adopted without most people noticing it's something new.