China Develops Flash Memory 10,000x Faster With 400-Picosecond Speed (interestingengineering.com) 88
Longtime Slashdot reader hackingbear shares a report from Interesting Engineering: A research team at Fudan University in Shanghai, China has built the fastest semiconductor storage device ever reported, a nonvolatile flash memory dubbed "PoX" that programs a single bit in 400 picoseconds (0.0000000004 s) -- roughly 25 billion operations per second. Conventional static and dynamic RAM (SRAM, DRAM) write data in 1-10 nanoseconds but lose everything when power is cut while current flash chips typically need micro to milliseconds per write -- far too slow for modern AI accelerators that shunt terabytes of parameters in real time.
The Fudan group, led by Prof. Zhou Peng at the State Key Laboratory of Integrated Chips and Systems, re-engineered flash physics by replacing silicon channels with two dimensional Dirac graphene and exploiting its ballistic charge transport. Combining ultralow energy with picosecond write speeds could eliminate separate highspeed SRAM caches and remove the longstanding memory bottleneck in AI inference and training hardware, where data shuttling, not arithmetic, now dominates power budgets. The team [which is now scaling the cell architecture and pursuing arraylevel demonstrations] did not disclose endurance figures or fabrication yield, but the graphene channel suggests compatibility with existing 2Dmaterial processes that global fabs are already exploring. The result is published in the journal Nature.
The Fudan group, led by Prof. Zhou Peng at the State Key Laboratory of Integrated Chips and Systems, re-engineered flash physics by replacing silicon channels with two dimensional Dirac graphene and exploiting its ballistic charge transport. Combining ultralow energy with picosecond write speeds could eliminate separate highspeed SRAM caches and remove the longstanding memory bottleneck in AI inference and training hardware, where data shuttling, not arithmetic, now dominates power budgets. The team [which is now scaling the cell architecture and pursuing arraylevel demonstrations] did not disclose endurance figures or fabrication yield, but the graphene channel suggests compatibility with existing 2Dmaterial processes that global fabs are already exploring. The result is published in the journal Nature.
pox (Score:5, Funny)
Re:pox (Score:5, Insightful)
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And just as significantly, it was created in a Lab. Someone should radio la Presidenta and his junta, those sneaky Chinese labs are at it again. They must be doing this just to get back at la Presidenta.
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Well played you bastard, my coffee is all over my mousepad from the desk slap.
As one circuit (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: As one circuit (Score:1, Insightful)
China is notorious for stretching facts.
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It's not really nation specific. Every PR announcement I've read (all in English!) has stretched the facts as far as they thought they could get away with.
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Re:As one circuit (Score:5, Informative)
Congrats, you just described every advancement in the history of electronics.
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Careful, your insecurity is showing through. It's university research. University reasearch is supposed to push limits.
If you want to only see stuff you can buy today get of Slashdot and head over to Walmart.com. And if you're that afraid of China that you don't want to see anything made there, I don't know, maybe find a local famer's market or craft sale or something.
Need to know more. (Score:2)
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It sure seems like it could replace both - it's flash/non-volatile, so survives removal of power. Sounds awesome... if it ever actually becomes a product we can buy. Maybe Trump's idiotic trade war will be over by then.
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You left out "how many times can it cycle".
Yeah, it sounds quite impressive. Perhaps it is. Based on current info, I'm going to suspend judgement. (Of course, since there's no existing product, I don't have any need for an actual judgement.)
The marketing idea is that AI is a thing (Score:1)
Companies have been throwing massive amounts of cash into the pathetic illusion of AI, so maybe they'll be interested in funding something useful that pretends to be for AI. The concept is interesting. Whether it's practical is another matter.
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That "pathetic illusion" of AI is now being used in Chemistry and Materials Science. Not all "illision AI" is bad, although in the hands some of the tech giants, it probably is quite deleterious.
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I had that pathetic illusion drive me around in the big city (Tempe, AZ) just last week.
The west needs to get off its backside (Score:5, Interesting)
China seems to be advancing extremely fast technology wise with breaththroughs that frankly should have come from the west with our supposed "advantage". I suspect in 10 years time it won't be china trying to source AI GPUs and other high tech from us, it'll be us trying to get at theirs as they progress from a manufacturing economy to an innovation one, while in the meantime western tech companies such as Nvidia collapse in value or go bust altogether as the rest of the world buy chinese as they're already starting to do with chinese cars.
Re:The west needs to get off its backside (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is complacency, western countries looking at themselves, saying aren’t we good, we have universal education for all our citizens, we are so much better than all these poor countries. Imagining that the job is done and this competitive edge would remain forever. Meanwhile countries like China, have been determined to make their mark in the world, instead of saying we are good enough, they have said we can do better.
We in the west might not agree with some of their authoritarian methods, but they have built something that now threatens the dominance of the USA. Incredibly, countries are now looking at China as being a more reliable trade partner than the USA. The balance of power is shifting rapidly in the world today.
Re:The west needs to get off its backside (Score:5, Informative)
It's more ideological than complacency, and the fact that we built up a lot of social debt that now needs paying off.
For example, in the US there is a feeling that education should be paid for by the person being educated, as they reap the benefits. The wider benefits to society are ignored. It's also far too socialist to "pay for other people's education".
In the UK it was austerity and a largely invented need for most people to suffer cuts and rising costs to "balance the books". Some of it was offset by foreign students subsidizing the local ones, but then we had the rise of the anti-immigration parties.
Meanwhile in China, education is seen as strategic and core to the country's future and prosperity. The fact that it lifts people out of poverty is a huge benefit too, because believe it or not the CCP and Xi in particular do actually care about that. Socialism works, it always has, be it social democracy like we have in parts of Europe, or China's unique take on it.
Re:The west needs to get off its backside (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, large groups ignoring reality and facts because of their idology have never been good for the society they are part of. The US is now mainly "everybody for themselves only". They have even elected a president that follows this principle now. And they are the only suppodedly 1st world country where access to healthcare depends on how much money you have. All others found that this is an absolutely idiotic approach once you see the bigger picture.
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I should have expanded on the social debt too. House prices are a good example. Lots of cheap housing in the past, then the rise of NIMBYs. Now it's unaffordable, birth rates are falling etc.
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All of those ideas stopped when the Cold War stopped. There was no longer any need to keep the masses happy because the masses no longer had anyone with which to contrast their lives.
Things are changing. Now we have YouTube etc showing people living a happy, fullfilling and prosperous life in China, and that makes us wonder about our own lives and the lives of our children.
It'll take a decade for enough people to join the dots and turn it in to real change.
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It's more ideological than complacency, and the fact that we built up a lot of social debt that now needs paying off.
For example, in the US there is a feeling that education should be paid for by the person being educated, as they reap the benefits. The wider benefits to society are ignored. It's also far too socialist to "pay for other people's education".
In the UK it was austerity and a largely invented need for most people to suffer cuts and rising costs to "balance the books". Some of it was offset by foreign students subsidizing the local ones, but then we had the rise of the anti-immigration parties.
Meanwhile in China, education is seen as strategic and core to the country's future and prosperity. The fact that it lifts people out of poverty is a huge benefit too, because believe it or not the CCP and Xi in particular do actually care about that. Socialism works, it always has, be it social democracy like we have in parts of Europe, or China's unique take on it.
Huh? Much of that mainland Chinese talent was educated in the U.S. on their own dime - nothing to do socialist money! Socialism didn’t build those U.S. institutions, nor did it pay for the foreign students’ education. China’s current socialist dictator, Xi? His own daughter went to Harvard! In addition, actual needs based scholarships are very common in the U.S., and they work - no socialism needed.
Your “high education breeds wealth” point is only useful up to a point: your ide
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I don't think this comment is going to age as well as you think it will.
Unless of course you mean by 'works', that it causes causes poverty, misery and millions of deaths.
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I really doubt that "the CCP and Xi in particular do actually care about" lifting it's people out of poverty. Mao probably did, and his generation, this group are the managers, They see the advantages (to them) of a strong machine that they control. Next generation is likely to be the efficiency experts, that dismantle the economy in the name of more efficiency. They'll likely be followed by those who want to sell it off for a quick profit.
You can't really predict the timeline that well, but that's the
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The Chinese spend A LOT of money on private tutoring etc. One reason for that is that the state doesn't spend enough money on school and universities. Meanwhile, most Western countries have never spent so much money on education (as percentage of GDP) as they do now. The problem with the school systems in the West is that socialism has become the leading ideology in the education sector. We know what best practices are: learn basic facts by heart, use pen and paper etc but instead of doing that we apply stu
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That is a typical cycle in human history: Any country that things they are "great" is decidedly not so anymore (if it ever was) after a few decades.
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The USA has 350 million people, whereas China has 1400 million. That means China has 4 times as many smart people on average than the US. Then there's Europe with 450 million people, and India with another 1400 million.
The reason that the US dominated in the postwar (WWII) period is simply a permissive immigration policy. By encouraging the smartest people from around the worl
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Even using your own arguments, we spent several years allowing dozens of millions of unvetted or poorly-vetted people to just flood into the country, tons illegally, many more staying illegally after the bogus asylum claims were rejected. These aren't (as you say) the "smart people" coming. They are overwhelmingly uneducated, destitute, and desperate people trying to flee their screwed-up countries. Many of whom do not even remotely fit/cherish our social or fiscal principles. Some will be hard workers
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>Being anti illegal immigration and pro selective immigration isn't "anti immigration" and it isn't "racism", it is just common sense
Wish I had mod points. This is the crucial point the liberal left either don't get or - more likely - deliberately choose to ignore so they can continue their ideological race baiting.
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"They are overwhelmingly uneducated, destitute, and desperate people trying to flee their screwed-up countries."
The US along with europe has spent much of the post WWII period violently destabilizing countries that are seen as too socialist or friendly to Russia, and preventing the global south from being able to see any profit from their own resources, not to mention directly undermining countries with trade policies like NAFTA. Somehow this chapter is always dropped and we're portrayed as somehow innocent
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Let's take your graph. It looks like American immigration is ~1 million per year on average over the period. Chinese emigration is ~0.5 million on average. How long would it take until parity? The equation 350 + 1*n = 1400 - 0.5*n can be solved to giv
Re:The west needs to get off its backside (Score:5, Interesting)
China has historically accounted for roughly 30% of the GDP of the world.
If not for the two historical accidents, the opium crisis and the Communist rule, it would have remained the largest economic power. It is not "advancing extremely fast", it is just recovering to its proper position, based on its size. The only factor that can realistically slow down China or prevent it from moving ahead of everyone else economically is the Xi regime, just like the emperors and the Communists did before.
Also, don't forget there is no "West" anymore. The USA, lead by its best and brightest since January this year, decided that a united "West" is a fantasy and that the largest "western" partners - the EU and Canada - are now the enemy. The leadership of this new USA also seems to believe that by occupying Canada and Greenland, building a wall and forgetting about the rest of the world, it can successfully isolate itself from a world of Chinese dominance and survive.
So calls to the "west" appear to be, by and large, pointless.
Re:The west needs to get off its backside (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. Making Xi emporer for life was about the most supid thing they could do. So far it seems to still be working, but people in these "for life" positions have a fata tendency to lose contact to reality at some point. If China can avoid that, there is no stopping them and they will remember who tried.
As to "the west", yes. I hear there are even talks about offering Canada EU membership. And no, the US cannot invade Canada or Greenland without that basically breaking everything for a long, long time. I also highly doubt the US military would do it. It takes a bit more than replacing the leadership with yes-men to get them there. And, of course, that would mean that the non-US part of NATO would then be at war with the US.
Re:The west needs to get off its backside (Score:5, Interesting)
Until very recently few people believed the US will deliver Ukraine to putin lock, stock and barrel without anything in return, or voluntarily relinquish its global superpower role to China, yet here we are. The US leadership is so afraid of China, that it is ready to forget the Earth is not flat and will try to close its Pacific border with all its military, and forget about its Atlantic one.
In preparation to do that, the US has shifted so much that it is not really a part of the Western civilization anymore. Its institutions have been putinized almost completely in just a few short months, and the populace is accepting this putinization without major opposition, which basically makes it irreversible.
After the shift, today it is China and russia that are the close ideological allies of the USA. The EU is its true ideological enemy, as well as any other country that puts human rights, freedom, equality and progress ahead of public religiosity, proud grift and fake patriotism.
Nobody can reasonably predict the fallout from this ideological roundabout and the ongoing destruction of statehood and concentration of power in two years from now.
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The EU is its true ideological enemy, as well as any other country that puts human rights, freedom, equality and progress ahead
I guess this is why the EU isn't offering to take all the deportees, they really want to, but Trump won't let them.
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everything is Trumps fault.
No this one is on Obama. Your reading the parent's post and thinking something was blamed on Trump (other than the thing that Trump is actually executing as a matter of policy) shows that the education system of the day failed you. As I assume you're not actually 15 years old that means you went through the education system governed by policies of a past administration.
Your low IQ is not Trump's fault.
Re: The west needs to get off its backside (Score:2)
How are you blaming Obama for something which began under Reagan?
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The US Department of Education was created by Jimmy Carter.
The attempts to compromise education to create low-information voters began under Reagan. He defunded California's schools first.
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I was being facetious. But if you want to actually follow my reasoning literally then the education system of the day is the fault of the government of the day. If Regan began its enshittification then it's a subsequent government's fault for not course correcting.
This is the fundamental issue with "blame" politics. No one wants to solve anything anymore as long as they can blame someone else.
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China has historically accounted for roughly 30% of the GDP of the world.
If not for the two historical accidents, the opium crisis and the Communist rule, it would have remained the largest economic power. It is not "advancing extremely fast", it is just recovering to its proper position, based on its size. The only factor that can realistically slow down China or prevent it from moving ahead of everyone else economically is the Xi regime, just like the emperors and the Communists did before.
Massive populations can certainly grow massive issues for any Government. Part of the “Great Leap Forward” was the extermination of tens of millions of citizens.
Size does matter. And not always in a good way. The bigger they are..
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You're right in general, of course, but in the specific case of the great leap forward it was more of the government creating massive issues for the population than the other way around.
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You're right in general, of course, but in the specific case of the great leap forward it was more of the government creating massive issues for the population than the other way around.
We’ve spent thousands of years carving up a single planet into Yours and Mine. Therefore, every major Government on the planet holds the responsibility of resource management. Part of that responsibility is population control. This occurs no matter how badly a moral populace wants to deny such a responsibility exists.
Some control their populations in more passive ways. Like legalized abortion and for-profit medical care. Other countries are forced to take more drastic measures when necessary. Th
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They were by design.
Hardly in the case of the Leap.
There is no indication that I know of that population growth was a concern in China back in the late 50s, when the Great Leap Forward was conceived. If you have any evidence of such concerns it would be interesting to see. From what I've read, it was, in fact, quite the opposite, because of low life expectancy, falling birth rates and high child mortality, the Mao regime was encouraging births and population control was hardly ever on the agenda.
There's an old Soviet saying "w
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Part of the âoeGreat Leap Forwardâ was the extermination of tens of millions of citizens.
It is a bit harsh to call an unplanned accident "part of something".
Mao picked the wrong people for government positions ... that is all. Or do you want to imply the starving was intention? Well, it was not.
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Yeah, we'll probably see more and more of this since Trumpelon is cutting/eliminating science and education. I wonder if we'll be the ones stealing IP and manufacturing copies of Chinese tech here... in AI/robotic driven factories since the American labor costs too much. Or maybe not, after the next great depression induced by Trump's policies, we'll be glad to work at $5/hr.
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You'll get your bowl [wikipedia.org]of cooked rice and a sprinkling of vegetables and you'll be glad of it. Heil Trump!
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That, my friend, is called "denial". Good luck with that approach...
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Re: The west needs to get off its backside (Score:4, Informative)
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People forget how quickly Japanese imports changed from "junk" to "highest quality". IIRC the major shift occurred in much less than a decade.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Looks like the only thing holding them back is lack of acces to the latest ASML products. Well, if Trump fucks around some more, the US could lose that access as well and China may get it back.
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China seems to be advancing extremely fast technology wise with breaththroughs that frankly should have come from the west with our supposed "advantage".
China has more honor students than the United States has students in total. And that statistic is at least a decade old.
Yes, massive populations grow their own issues, but they also come with undeniable advantages.
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Nvidia, AMD and Apple GPUs are made mostly in the Republic of China. Some of the Intel ones are made in Shanghai, in the People's Republic of China (others are made in Malaysia, Ireland, Israel, Costa Rica...).
So everybody is already mostly "trying to source AI GPUs" from one China or another.
400 ps? (Score:4, Informative)
Slow as molasses, here's 16 ps (with scaling to 0.5).
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.10... [acs.org]
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Thank you. There's been research into replacements for things like conventional DRAM and NAND for years. Let's not forget that when hearing about this wondrous achievement from a research group in China.
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I am not familiar with the current state of the art, but CCM devices seem to have one major flaw: they only work in extremely low temperature conditions. Indeed, they only remain non volatile under such conditions. Outside of niche applications, having to keep your storage media continuously at similar temperatures to those needed for super conductivity does not seem very practical. Changing bits on CCM media may require negligible power, but maintaining the necessary environment continuously is costly.
Of c
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Propaganda (Score:2, Interesting)
"China" (Score:2)
Was this dude in the Olympic team or something? When are we going to see people as individuals?
If they have a sense of humor ... (Score:2)
China Develops Flash Memory 10,000x Faster With 400-Picosecond Speed
They'll name it, "The Flash" memory. :-)
Fantastic, now for independent proof/verification (Score:2)
Sadly anything extraordinary reported by China needs at lest 2 kilos of salt due to the numerous false reports of breakthroughs that have occurred over the past couple of decades, especially this last one. Well, at least they don't claim to have found magical unicorn caves like north korea has.
Consistent units please (Score:2)
So many comparisons with other technologies but not consistent units to use? At least stay consistent with the SI prefix
"China"? Or the Fudan University in Shanghai? (Score:2)
However, when advancements are made by entities in China, it's almost always said "China" did X.
I wonder why.
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Americans have a habit of doing this. Ask an American anywhere in the world where they're from and they'll tell you the name of their home town or maybe state, but ask them about something that happened in another country and you'll get the country name at best. It's "Europe", "Africa", "Asia" or "China."
I guess China is big enough that it doesn't get referred to by continent.
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So, not China (Score:2)
Need ideas (Score:2)
Looking for something related that plausibly has monkey or chicken as an acronym.
AI plug? (Score:2)
We need 80-128GB of high speed, probably volatile storage to run the biggest LLMs right now. Let's assume eventually a terabyte will be the viable economic sweet spot for functionality vs the buck. The write time has nearly zero effect on "real time". It's all about the read.
So this is fast memory. But once you
1) multiplex it
2) add error checking and correction
3) connect a system bus (assume 20cm)
4) Serialize and deserialize data
H