Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Monday January 10 2022, @11:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the computers-without-Alzheimers-department dept.

Mass production of revolutionary computer memory moves closer with ULTRARAM™ on silicon wafers for the first time

ULTRARAM™ is a novel type of memory with extraordinary properties. It combines the non-volatility of a data storage memory, like flash, with the speed, energy-efficiency and endurance of a working memory, like DRAM. To do this it utilises the unique properties of compound semiconductors, commonly used in photonic devices such as LEDS, laser diodes and infrared detectors, but not in digital electronics, which is the preserve of silicon.

[...] Now, in a collaboration between the Physics and Engineering Departments at Lancaster University and the Department of Physics at Warwick, ULTRARAM™ has been implemented on silicon wafers for the very first time.

Professor Manus Hayne of the Department of Physics at Lancaster, who leads the work said, "ULTRARAM™ on silicon is a huge advance for our research, overcoming very significant materials challenges of large crystalline lattice mismatch, the change from elemental to compound semiconductor and differences in thermal contraction."

[...] Remarkably, the ULTRARAM™ on silicon devices actually outperform previous incarnations of the technology on GaAs compound semiconductor wafers, demonstrating (extrapolated) data storage times of at least 1000 years, fast switching speed (for device size) and program-erase cycling endurance of at least 10 million, which is one hundred to one thousand times better than flash.

So... are we approaching the point where we get a plug-in RAM storage module that can be used like nonvolatile RAM -- because it is nonvolatile? And when you've built complex data structures on it with RAM efficiency, you can unplug it and put it, and of course the data, on a shelf for later use?

Or just plug it into a computer when you need an extra 24 gigabytes of RAM to formally verify a category-theoretical theorem?

How would *you* like to use this?

Journal Reference:
Peter D. Hodgson, Dominic Lane, Peter J. Carrington, et al. ULTRARAM: A Low‐Energy, High‐Endurance, Compound‐Semiconductor Memory on Silicon [open], Advanced Electronic Materials (DOI: 10.1002/aelm.202101103)


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @12:31AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @12:31AM (#1211658)

    A big part of thrill is in the hunt for new stuff. Who wants to keep looking at the same old stuff? Might as well be married. j/k

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @01:08AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @01:08AM (#1211664)

    Have you ever wondered why you can eat the same meal every day and enjoy it, but porn goes stale after about 3 times?

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @01:46AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @01:46AM (#1211669)

      You can eat bland food every single day and not get tired of it. Consider bread and rice, for example, staples that traditionally were part of nearly every mealHowever, very spicy dishes will be extremely appetizing but you cannot eat them every day, lest you grow tired of them. It is because they make a very strong impression while you're enjoying them. Porn is like that. It is a spicy consumable and therefore you cannot enjoy the same exact stimulus every day. You become burned out on it.

      This is why you can't whack it to the same picture of Nikki Dial for the rest of your life.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @02:07AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @02:07AM (#1211677)

        UltraRAM sounds like the perfect name for an "adult" toy! Porn it is, then!