Researchers have published an article describing the developments that will pave the way for the mass production of UltraRAM, a promising new memory technology. The report, written by scientists at the University of Lancaster in England, refers to UltraRAM as “a non-volatile memory with the potential to achieve fast, ultra-low energy electron storage.”
UltraRAM combines the non-volatility of traditional storage memory with the speed and durability of RAM, meaning it can be used as universal memory in the future.
Several attempts have been made over the years to develop a memory technology that eliminates the need for separate RAM and data storage. Neither resistive RAM, magneto-resistive RAM nor phase-shift memory lived up to expectations. And Intel’s Optane memory, a somewhat comparable solution, was also pulled from consumer PCs last year.
But the first signs for UltraRAM look promising in terms of performance. The memory technology offers data storage times of at least 1,000 years and “switching energy orders of magnitude lower than DRAM and flash,” the report claims.
According to the article, “A memory with fast and non-volatile, high endurance and low-energy logic state switching, i.e. a so-called universal memory, has long been rejected as unreachable because of the seemingly contradictory physical properties such a device would entail.”
“Significant progress has been made with emerging memory products in small or large-scale commercial production, but as with conventional memory, the tradeoff between logic state stability and switching energy remains. UltraRAM uses InAs quantum wells (QW) to create a three-barrier resonance tunneling (TBRT) structure. ‘s) and breaks this paradigm by taking advantage of the AlSb barriers.”
Although technology is inherent (esoteric); The ability to combine the features of RAM and storage memory is important as it can provide performance benefits in a variety of use cases, from servers and PCs to game consoles and more.
The authors of the paper say that work is already underway to further improve the manufacturing process and introduce several improvements that will increase the likelihood of UltraRAM entering the market at a competitive price point and foster rapid and widespread adoption. . .
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