Advance In PCM Memory Could Dramatically Reduce Power Consumption 74
Zothecula writes "Researchers from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the University of Illinois have developed new low-power digital memory which uses much less power and is faster than other solutions currently available. The breakthrough could give future consumer devices like smartphones and laptops a much longer battery life, but might also benefit equipment used in telecommunications, science or by the military."
Mythical Improvements. (Score:4, Insightful)
So, everyone said, if we switch to SSDs, longer battery life. Did it happen? No.
Memory does not use up that much power, relative to the whole system. Even switching a laptop's screen to LEDs doesn't help that much.
It's almost the same as the mythical new invention that will be out "in 5 years".
Give it up people. Semiconductors improve year after year, These kinds of breakthroughs that drastically change everything just don't happen.
The only thing I can think of that made that kind of a change in the last 30 years was going to an SSD drive for speed and responsiveness. Other than that, each year gets a bit better. Don't expect that to change any time soon.
Interesting, but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I, no doubt like most of you, enjoy reading about advancements in technologies. Especially those which can have a direct impact on computer performance!
Lately though, it seems to me, that all of these headlines and articles are exactly the same article. Making some claim about a major breakthrough and how this will make my computer 100 times faster and use 100 times less power....maybe...in the future.
It seems always to the case that in 10 years, "this" will enable us to use a lot less power and have much higher densities and so on and so on.
Basically, why the techs are interesting, the articles are absolute crap. Sensationalizing everything where there is nothing worth do so about. Why can they not just explain the so-called break though, it's probable applications and realistically how long, if at all, until commercialization?