NAND flash follow-on technology

German memory-maker Qimonda wants us to know it has a promising new non-volatile memory [NV-RAM] technology to join the NAND flash replacement candidates: carbon-resistive memory. Different forms of carbon are known as allotropes, and the element's atoms are bonded in different ways in each allotrope. In graphite the atoms are …

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually over 100x more dense

Feature size on a chip scales via square (i.e., you get 4x more transistors on a 45 nm chip than on a 90 nm chip, all else being equal) So its more like 100-400x as dense, not 10-20x.

However, I assume they are talking about the minimum size it could scale to, not the size of the first generation product. Either way, I'm sure a lot of development would be required to mass produce it. IBM's MRAM has been 'a few years away' for years now, it is starting to remind me of bubble memory, the next big thing back in the 80s. Hopefully this technology will not suffer the same fate, but time will tell.

[E]

The interface is the important standard

Suppose all the mentioned storage technologies can be brought to production, and for the sake of argument that they all perform comparably. Then the important standard is how they plug into the rest of the PC. If all the products can be plugged into a SATA interface, or into the PCIe bus then I don't really care practically what technology is inside the device.

They do look all look very nifty, though I admit that I am no materials scientist.

[Anonymous Coward]

@E

You might not, but then I coulden't care how it fits in to a PC as long as it looks the same to the programs I write, which I think is the important bit. Each to there own and just because you think somthing is important for what you do dosent mean it is to everyone.

[Robert Ramsay]

hold on a cotton picking minute...

Did I just read that they can turn graphite into diamond?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean ...

... that if I store all ones (or all zeroes) I can make my memory more valuable by converting it into a diamond?

[Chris Mellor]

Sent in anonymously

"Surely, that would have to be 10^2 - 20^2 times more capacity."

Sent to me,

Chris.

[Anonymous Coward]

in diamond they form a tetrahedral lattice.

Interestingly, diamond is two separate, interpenetrating tetrahedral lattices

[Mage]

Bubble Memory

Was bursting by late 1970s. It had promise in the early 1970s.

It's serial with major and minor loops, so it's doubtful it will even make a comeback. Still, it beat anything else at the time for robust nv storage. More like low capacity solid state drive for Military.

[Peter Page]

@Robert Ramsay

Yeah, think so. Not the most fun way of going about it though....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7725815.stm

They use the obvious-when-you-think-about-it pulsed liquid injection chemical vapor deposition technique. I've been drinking a lot of tequila recently resulting in quite a bit of pulsed liquid injection and plenty of chemical vapour. Doctor says my crystals are uric not diamond, though.

[E]

@AC

It is probably safe to say that if something conforms to, say, the SATA standard then it acts like a disk. In which case your APIs/libs/code can treat it like one.

And, of course what I think is important may not be to other people. Did I imply otherwise?