Forget Flash: Resistive RAM Crams 1TB Onto Tiny Chip 287
nk497 writes "Flash memory could soon be a thing of the past, according to U.S. startup Crossbar, which claims it's close to bringing resistive RAM (RRAM) to the market. Crossbar is touting impressive specs for the RRAM technology, promising 20 times the write performance at a fraction of the power consumption and size of the current best-in-class NAND flash modules — and squeezing terabytes of storage capacity onto a single chip the size of a postage stamp. The company also claims its technology can retain data for up to 20 years, compared with the standard one to three years with NAND flash."
Re:Will we finally get a replacement for hard disk (Score:5, Insightful)
The first one we already do. SSDs are great.
The latter two, what would you replace them with? A trackpad could work I guess, but I can't see a replacement for a keyboard. Speaking is way slower than typing, typing on a touch screen is an error prone suckfest, and those are pretty much the only options right now.
Re:Will we finally get a replacement for hard disk (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand why you would even want to replace them. Mechanical switches are the best thing available in terms of providing input with tactile feedback. The only reason to use anything else is cost or space constraints.
Hype reserved until I can buy it from Amazon (Score:5, Insightful)
Cool announcement.
But...
Given how often we hear researchers exclaiming they've invented the next "Greatest thing (TM)", I'll reserve judgement until I can purchase what comes out of their research.
I'd bet given the patent landscape at the moment that no matter what they have they will be sued for infringement by somebody. It's the way of things today.
Re:Will we finally get a replacement for hard disk (Score:5, Insightful)
How is that different than any other storage device failing?
This is why backups exist.
Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Insightful)
But all the flash devices I've used have a retention period of at least 20 years (disclaimer: I'm thinking of flash ROMs and CPLDs and SPI flash for FPGAs, but the way they store bits is the same as a USB flash drive). I've never seen any as short as 1-3 years.
one to three years? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have SD cards and USB thumb drives far older than 1-3 years and can still read the ancient data that was on them just fine.
Where did this "1-3 years for NAND flash" figure come from? It's a bit concerning.
Re:but what about the cloud? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because technology alternates back and forth on this stuff.
Early Computers did all the work. You had a computer it did all the work for you and only you.
Then we got the mainframe One Big computer with terminals so people use the terminals and the data gets saved on the Mainframe(s).
Then came the PC, we started to move off the mainframe and ran programs directly on our computer again.
Once broad band became cheap enough and popular services began to move to the cloud as on the average your data was safer there, and easier for the company to manage the software.
So with cheap and a lot of data we could go back to more of a Personal computing role again. Probably keeping the strong points from the past and making using computing a little more different.
Say you now have a Netflix app that will in the background download what it expects you to watch. Then if you want to watch it it is available even if it is offline.
Or your system will host an archive of your data in cases your networks speed is too slow or are offline.
Will their be trade offs you bet. But this type of stuff cycles around. CPU+Storage+Networking+Price Fluctuate over time. So the popular solution will change base on the systems strong points.
Desktops for average Joe Web Browser user, is starting to get out of fashion, and going to Phones and Tablets (I am not touting death to any technology here). But to get the optimal conveniences we are trading off Slower CPU, and Storage to get small form factor at a good price. So many apps are popular on the cloud. Because the servers have the Big CPUs and storage and will just send output to the low end Tablets. Now these tablets are getting faster and more storage so people will want to run more apps on them, thus more apps will be created.
Re:Will we finally get a replacement for hard disk (Score:2, Insightful)
With (at least in the previous generation) the controller of SSD it is a lot worse.
With harddisks the are first soft faults, later there are hard faults, but often most data can be retrieved from a disk.
With SSD, from one second to the next the whole thing will not work anymore, you can't even read from it anymore, nothing.
Talking is faster than typing (for most people) (Score:5, Insightful)
how is it faster than typing on a proper keyboard? I cannot speak as quickly as I can type.
You probably can and do speak significantly quicker than you type unless you have some sort of speak impediment. Most people can comfortably speak at around 150 words per minute which is far faster than most can type. Dictating however does take some practice so you quite likely would be slower at first until you get comfortable dictating.
RAM data retention (Score:5, Insightful)
So not only will they sell new computers without a Windows install disc, they won't even install it on a disk drive, it will be preinstalled in RAM and all you have to do is turn it on.
Although it is kind of an interesting idea to consider a computer where there is no distinction between mass storage and RAM, where RAM is rewritable but permanent.
You could even leave programs in a running state but just stop executing them on the CPU. You could install new software in an already-running and configured state (how's that for a backup?).