SanDisk and Toshiba test ReRAM chips
SanDisk and Toshiba have created a 24nm ReRAM test chip as inquirer reports. Sandisk and Toshiba have manufactured a test chip that uses ReRAM or resistive Random Access Memory technology, which is also referred to as the memristor. The chip has been manufactured on a 24nm fab process and has a capacity of 32GB. ReRAM has several advantages over flash insofar as the memory cells are individually addressable like traditional dynamic RAM. In addition it is also non-volatile, which means that it does not lose data when power is turned off.
RAM stores data through changes in the resistance of a cell. There are a variety of ReRAM technologies in development, including phase-change memory (PCM) and HP's memristors, based on at least a half-dozen competing materials.
Expect healthy competition as the industry and buyers sort out the details. NAND flash will retain advantages in cost and density for the foreseeable future, meaning that it will be here for decades to come. So where will ReRAM fit in the storage hierarchy?
- Data integrity. Losing a snapshot is no big deal. Losing your checking account deposit is. Mission critical applications will prefer ReRAM devices - and can afford them.
- Performance. Today's SSDs go through many contortions to give good performance - and don't succeed all that well. A fast medium removes complexity as well as increasing performance.
- Mobility. Depending on how the never-ending tug-of-war between network bandwidth and memory capacity develops, consumers may come to prefer large capacity storage on their mobile devices. If so, ReRAM's power-sipping ways will be an asset on high-end products.
Toshiba is well-positioned to enter these high-end markets with SSDs analogous to today's 15k disks. It may not be a huge market, but the margins will make it worthwhile.
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I fully expect memristor-based drives to fall in price much faster than NAND-based flash drives did. They're somewhat easier to manufacture, should scale much more easily (some prototype memristor elements have already been tested around 1nm) and can actually be stacked on top of each other, unlike flash chips. This stacking ability should also increase memory densities quickly once drive manufacturers actually start developing their ReRAM chips with stacked memristor layers.
Another benefit of the tech is that it produces little heat in comparison to transistor-based tech, which helps to allow for stacking, and given that memristors, at least ones similar to HP's version of the tech, utilize very little power, requiring milliamps and millivolts compared to the (if I remember right) 20V needed to flash NAND memory.
I really think one thing that might hold back widespread adoption of the tech as a replacement for the flash memory business is that all these companies have just sunk billions into development and deployment of NAND flash SSD drives, and are likely going to resist scrapping the tech just as it really becomes profitable -- and paying back all the R&D funds that they spent.