14 DAY TRIAL // I have to say that this is a rather unusual press release coming from IBM, but they've recently claimed that along with Qimonda and Macronix they will soon show off, a memory technology could terminate the rise of NAND flash devices and replace them in the mobile business (Ipods, flash based cell phones). It seems that the announcement came at a time when only IBM has a working prototype of the new high-density non-volatile memory chips.
The three companies will show off phase change memory for the first time at an IEEE conference in San Francisco on the 13th of December. The unveiling of this new memory type is said to be quite an event, especially because the technology could be faster than flash based devices but with the same features regarding space and toughness.
The guys at IBM say that their prototype has the ability to switch 500 times faster than conventional flash memory and all that performance comes from a chip with a cross section of only 20 nanometres between the switching gates.
Big Blue said that the mass production of this new memory won't start until at least 2015, (the statement is based on Moore's Law and includes the use of already known technologies). The sophisticated phase-change chip uses a germanium antimony semiconductor base, doped with several unspecified elements.
It's flash mania all over again. While traditional flash manufacturers are gearing up for the arrival of solid state hard drives, others try to jump ahead with unusual solutions such as this one. Whether it will work or not and how well will it perform, remains to be seen over the following years.