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Storage Memory: IBM Advances PCM as Alternative to DRAM and Flash
Phase Change Memory (PCM) is another type of media used for computer memory that may challenge existing DRAM and Flash memory technologies. Last month IBM announced a breakthrough for densely packing data in a PCM array.
PCM has two states: amorphous and crystalline, and the electrical conductivity differs in the two states, amorphous is low while crystalline is high. ‘0’ and ‘1’ bits are stored when the material is either in the amorphous or crystalline state. When a medium electric current is used, states can be set. Low currents are used to read back the current setting.
A major feature of PCM is that it does not lose memory when the power is turned off. Compared to DRAM it is somewhere between five to ten times slower, but it’s as much as 70 times faster than flash memory. PCM is able to withstand 10 million write cycles, compared to about only 3000 for flash memory before it starts to degrade.
Dr. Haris Pozidis, researcher at IBM, said that “phase change memory is the first instantiation of a universal memory with properties of both DRAM and flash, thus answering one of the grand challenges of our industry. Reaching three bits per cell is a significant milestone because at this density the cost of PCM will be significantly less than DRAM and closer to flash.”
IBM commented on the possibilities of the technology, saying that “in the enterprise space, entire databases could be stored in PCM for blazing fast query processing for time-critical online applications, such as financial transactions.”
