Santa Clara, Calif.--A universal form of computer memory that can replace all of the different breeds of chips in computers and electronics today--MRAM, Spintronics, , Zettacore, silicon nanocrystals--has been a holy grail for component monkeys for a long, long time. Donovan sang about it, I think.
Several solutions have been proposed, but each one has failed to become a solution to everyone's memory needs for every application.
The latest entrant is Grandis, which has developed a magnetic type of memory chip called Spin-Transfer Torque RAM (STT-RAM to his friends). Grandis has made samples and chips based on its technology will hit the market late next year.
Grandis essentially places a small magnet on top of a transistor and caps it with a layer of sensitive material. An electric current is applied. If the current goes through the magnetic junction in a bottom to top direction, that creates high resistance and that registers as a "1" in the computer. If it runs from left to right, resistance drops and the computer recognizes this as a "0",
"It is the cheapest solution out there for universal memory," said Farhad Tabrizi, CEO during a presentation at the Flash Memory Summit this week. "It is basically a transistor plus a magnet."
As an added bonus, the chips can be made on regular silicon manufacturing lines. It takes two additional steps. The additional equipment required to make STT-RAM runs about $10 million, he said.
Tabrizi, who used to work at Hynix and has been around the memory business for years, added that the company's chips will start competing against flash in a few years and could start replacing flash at 25-nanometer manufacturing, which will come around 2013 or so.
The first application will be for airbags. Grandis chips will replace the SRAM-NOR memory structure in those. It will then try to get into mobile and computing.
Renesas has licensed the technology and other companies are examining it, he said. Sevin Rosen, among other VCs, have invested in the company. Grandis has 30 patents and 50 pending applications.
"Our rates are much more reasonable than Ovonyx," he said. Ovonyx licenses technology for phase-change memory.
If they succeed, consumers and manufacturers would benefit, he said. Consumers would get smaller, faster memory, leading to cheaper devices. Manufacturers, meanwhile, wouldn't have to juggle factory capacity between different types of memory. Just put on the STT-RAM lithography masks and let 'er rip. The ultimate prize--conquest of the memory world--is a longshot. Large companies hate licensing technology, something Rambus can talk about. Magnetic memory has also had some hiccups. MRAM, promoted by Freescale, will likely run out of steam at 65 nanometers, according to Freescale. Competing ideas such as Spintronics from IBM are out there, although the word is that is having some issues.
Nonetheless, the company has a shot.
SANTA CLARA Calif.--Will Intel announce this year that it will finally start producing phase-change memory, a potential replacement for flash memory that's been in the works?
That's the guess among people in the hallways of the Flash Memory Summit taking place here this week. Observers say Intel and STMicroelectronics, which have formed a joint venture to make memory, may soon outline plans to go commercial with phase-change memory chips (also called ovonics) this year. ST is very hot on getting the technology--which is said to be more dense than flash memory--out into the market, sources say.Intel has not officially commented on when it will come out with this memory. Greg Komoto, manager for strategic planning for Intel's flash memory group, who spoke at the conference, merely said Intel has created samples of 90-nanometer phase-change chips and that Intel believes these chips could replace NAND flash, the kind of memory found in MP3 players, in the future.
"There is no other memory that has a potential for low costs that has so many other attributes," he said.Jim Handy of Objective Analysis noted that the Intel-ST joint venture is named Numonyx. The company that invented the basic technology and that licenses it to large outfits like Intel is called Ovonyx (and maybe the favorite band at the company is Wyld Stallionz from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure). Numonyx last month said it will make memory for the consumer market and promises to reveal more details later this year.
"I'm reading a lot into that weird spelling," he said.
Phase-change memory is made from similar material as CD discs. The material is fashioned into chips. Microscopic bits on the chip are then heated rapidly to around 600 celsius. The heating turns the bit from having a crystalline structure to having an amorphous one.
It has been a long time in the works. Intel co-founder Gordon Moore wrote an article in which he extolled the virtues of the type of memory and predicted a sunny future for it. The article came out in 1970. Since then, though, a lot of work has been done. Samsung, Philips and others are experimenting with the stuff too.
NAND flash, by the way, will start to hit a wall in around seven years, according to Eli Harari, CEO of SanDisk, one of the primary manufacturers of NAND.
All we are is dust in the wind, Socrates.
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