IT House January 12 news, according to foreign media techspot reported, earlier this month, researchers in the Department of Physics and Engineering of Lancaster University in the United Kingdom published a paper detailing the recent important progress of UltraRAM's "ultra-efficient storage" technology.
The goal of this technology is to combine non-volatile flash NAND and volatile memory RAM with energy efficiency and extreme endurance. Previously, Intel Optane Optane has made a pioneering attempt to mass-produce Optane memory products, but it is still not enough to completely replace RAM. At the same time, Samsung also has Z-NAND technology, and Armor and Western Digital also want to apply XL-FLASH storage to consumer or enterprise storage products.
Specifically, the manufacturing process of UltraRAM chips is similar to that of semiconductor components such as LEDs, lasers, and phototransistors. Structurally, this storage technology uses a silicon substrate, which is significantly lower in cost compared to gallium arsenide. The chip has a complex multilayer structure, and the central structure is also isolated using alumina.
Scientists say that UltraRAM has a relatively low manufacturing cost and a high cost performance. The prototypes that have been manufactured for testing can guarantee that the data can be stored for 1000 years, and the number of erases can exceed 10 million, with little need to consider durability. If such a memory chip can achieve the speed of traditional RAM, it will have a significant impact on the industry.
Manufacturing process diagram:
IT House understands that UltraRAM uses a "resonance tunneling" quantum mechanical effect that allows the barrier to be transparent after a voltage is applied. UltraRAM's write process is very energy efficient compared to the write technology used in RAM and NAND flash memory, thus helping to improve the battery life of mobile devices.
Lancaster researchers say they need to further improve the manufacturing process for storage units and increase storage density. This technology has great potential to eliminate the process of data transfer by traditional computers with dedicated memory.