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Geekpedia » Tech News » After 38 Years, Flash Memory Is Getting Replaced

After 38 Years, Flash Memory Is Getting Replaced

On Tuesday, April 1st 2008 at 08:47 PM

By Andrei Pociu (View Profile)

Numonyx, a company now worth $3 billion closed a deal with Intel to create new types of memory, the nonvolatile NOR and NAND. According to the CEO of Numonyx, the new type of memory is more performant than typical Flash memory, more durable, uses less power and it will be easier to have its capacity increased in the future, while the traditional flash chips will require increasingly more circuitry.

The memory is laser based, where a multitude of lasers heat up a minuscule bit made of the same material as CDs and DVDs. Depending on the time it takes to cool, the material solidifies into one of two possible structures, this representing the 0s and 1s.

The Numonyx company absorbed money-losing STMicroelectronics, the firm that originally came up with the technology many years ago, and expected to release it to production in 2003. The actual technology has been researched since the 1970s, when Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, wrote an article in September of 1970 predicting that the technology could be put into production by the end of the 70s.

The newly formed company is expected to generate over $3 billion in annual revenue, from selling memory chips to end users that will use them in cameras, phones and other similar devices, as well as for companies to embed them into the products they are building. The memory is expected to become cheaper than Flash in a short period of time and it will be available on the market starting this year.

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Current Comments

by Henri de Ferady on Friday, April 4th 2008 at 08:52 AM

Given that ths was dated the 1st of April I was suspicious.
But when I saw that this kind of memory uses lasers which are hard to
put into a chip and all sorts of doubtful claims, I was much more sure it was a joke.

by bulfrog on Tuesday, April 8th 2008 at 06:52 AM

Search Google for Numonyx and you will see that it is real.