Intel and Micron say they have designed a new class of memory chip that could radically improve the performance of smartphones, desktops, laptops, and other computing devices.
Revealed during a press event in San Francisco on Tuesday morning, the technology is called 3D XPoint. According to Intel and Micron, these chips are “non-volatile,” meaning they can store data even without power; they’re up to 1,000 faster than NAND flash memory chips used in most mobile devices; and they can store 10 times more data than the DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chips used in PCs.
Traditional computers—including PCs and laptops as well as the data center servers that drive the world’s Internet services—are built around a processor, some DRAM, and a hard drive. The DRAM holds the short-term data that the processor needs to drive the machine at any given moment, while the hard drive holds applications and long-term data.
However, many machines now use faster flash drives in lieu of hard drives. Smartphones and tablets did away with hard drives and use flash for storage1. Intel and Micron’s new technology, 3D XPoint, is a potential alternative to flash as well as DRAM.
3D XPoint doesn’t match the speed of DRAM chips. But since it is non-volatile, the new chips will have the ability, like NAND flash, to preserve data even when a device is powered down.
“One of the most significant hurdles in modern computing is the time it takes the processor to reach data on long-term storage,” Mark Adams, president of Micron, said in a statement. “This new class of non-volatile memory is a revolutionary technology that allows for quick access to enormous data sets and enables entirely new applications.”
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/3d-xpoint/
Everyone is annoyed with memory issues, this should help speed things up. But it will it be too long before software gobbles up the extra space?Revealed during a press event in San Francisco on Tuesday morning, the technology is called 3D XPoint. According to Intel and Micron, these chips are “non-volatile,” meaning they can store data even without power; they’re up to 1,000 faster than NAND flash memory chips used in most mobile devices; and they can store 10 times more data than the DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chips used in PCs.
Traditional computers—including PCs and laptops as well as the data center servers that drive the world’s Internet services—are built around a processor, some DRAM, and a hard drive. The DRAM holds the short-term data that the processor needs to drive the machine at any given moment, while the hard drive holds applications and long-term data.
However, many machines now use faster flash drives in lieu of hard drives. Smartphones and tablets did away with hard drives and use flash for storage1. Intel and Micron’s new technology, 3D XPoint, is a potential alternative to flash as well as DRAM.
3D XPoint doesn’t match the speed of DRAM chips. But since it is non-volatile, the new chips will have the ability, like NAND flash, to preserve data even when a device is powered down.
“One of the most significant hurdles in modern computing is the time it takes the processor to reach data on long-term storage,” Mark Adams, president of Micron, said in a statement. “This new class of non-volatile memory is a revolutionary technology that allows for quick access to enormous data sets and enables entirely new applications.”
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/3d-xpoint/
