New memory/storage technology could be a massive game changer.

[Gromett]

Currently we have two (Main) types of storage.
Memory (DDR4/5 etc) which is what your programs run from. This memory is really fast but very forgetful. It needs to be refreshed constantly to prevent it losing it's data. and as soon as you turn your computer off it is gone. It can last for ever and is accessible byte by byte.
SSD, This memory is used for storage of programs and data. It is slow relative to main memory but can retain data without power for a very long time. It cannot be accessed bit wise and has to be written to in pages. So if you change one letter in a document it has to re-write the entire page of memory. It has limited write cycles before a cell becomes defunct.

A new memory type they are calling UltraRam is the holy grail of memory. It is fast, doesn't require refresh, doesn't require power to keep the data and is bit wise accessible. It appears to have a lifespan of 1,000 years and the number of write cycles has not yet been determined as they were still successfully writing at the end of the test period.

The reason this is exciting for me is this. Imagine if your OS loaded once into memory then never needed to be reloaded. Switching on your computer would not require it to go through the boot process. Switch it on and with in a fraction of a second you are back up and running. Some software has to anticipate power failures so has to write certain data and structures to the hard drive for permanent storage in case a recovery is needed. With this memory you wouldn't need to do this anymore which would speed the software up by 1 perhaps 2 orders of magnitudes. I am particularly looking at you SQL databases.

This memory will of course be expensive to start with, but the manufacturing process used does lend itself to mass manufacturing so it is likely once/if it takes off it will become cheaper and perhaps even push Flash memory (SSD) out of the picture..

This is currently being tested in the lab with very promising results. So it will be a few years yet until we see this in production and available. But still, exciting times.

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[Gromett]

Oh, and it is a British invention at Lancaster University.

 

[nicholsong]

Karl

I think you need a younger audience, for these things promising stuff years in the future, which for many of us old codgers may be beyond the grave

 

[dazandandrea]

Karl

I think you need a younger audience, for these things promising stuff years in the future, which for many of us old codgers may be beyond the grave

Just look how the likes of mobile phones have progressed in the last 5 years .
I dont know how old you are but im sure it will still affect you .
I generally dislike the mive to ever more complex techno gadgets but even i realise its has massive potential to improve ( used correctly) our lives.
Im 52 and feel like im being left behind by technology and i have decided that i need to try and keep at least informed as to whats happening.

 

[Richard n Ann]

I think I can spare 2 minutes while the lap top comes on. Actually my old thing takes 20 minutes

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[Jimbohorlicks]

My first computer was a Sinclair zx51,still have it somewhere in the roof space. It cost a fair bit then although it was supposed to be "relatively cheap" I progressed through the amiga,commodore ,Atari and eventually had a pc with windows 3.1 but DOS something or other as well. Memory then was around 2 mb.
I bought a x2 cd player/ copier ,that was close on £100 then ,it was the bee's knees.lots of 3.5 floppy discs,I had a few hundred all with "useful " stuff on them, all in plastic purpose made boxes.
One game I had consisted of around 20 discs with all the saved data etc.it was fantastic,superfast ( probably 20 mins to load)
I now have sticks that contain as much as all my previous computers held in thier memories.
Roll on the new technology,eventually it becomes old hat and cheap as chips.
Thanks for the heads up Gromett

 

[Rapido925M]

My first computer was a Sinclair zx51,still have it somewhere in the roof space. It cost a fair bit then although it was supposed to be "relatively cheap" I
Thanks for the heads up Gromett

Presumably you meant ZX81? (Or have you been time travelling?)
Not only were they incredibly "cheap" and "fast" for their time, one limiting factor was having to load from tape: how many times did that damn cassette get to within a couple of seconds of finishing then stop, requiring the whole 3 minute rewind and rerun?

Most of us will remember "dial up" internet and the wonderful sound of that modem as it sent information backwards and forwards: moving to broadband (then superfast broadband) has knocked seconds off the time that I can spare to make a cup of coffee . Isn't progress wonderful?

Gordon

(I had a ZX80, 81, Spectrum, BBC etc before moving onto Macs, Windows in various forms, etc. Now I struggle to keep up with my iPhone, tablets [electronic and medicinal], Kindle, Fitbit, and so on. PROGRESS!]

 

[mitzimad]

Appears to have a life span of 1000 years where did that appear in a crystal ball maybe bill the conk had the original and its still running

 

[Gromett]

Appears to have a life span of 1000 years where did that appear in a crystal ball maybe bill the conk had the original and its still running

It is in the link I provided in the original post. Section 5 if you can't get up the enthusiasm to read the whole thing

 

[Gromett]

Karl

I think you need a younger audience, for these things promising stuff years in the future, which for many of us old codgers may be beyond the grave

2-3 years for this tech to come to market is the average prediction of some tech pundits. I would guess 5 years and initially targeted at the enterprise for persistent memory applications like databases. It would require quite a bit of work to get this stuff to work on Windows for example unless it was simply used for storage which defeats 1 of the big benefits of this.

I will most certainly still be around and earning money from this kind of thing...

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[mitzimad]

It is in the link I provided in the original post. Section 5 if you can't get up the enthusiasm to read the whole thing

As can be clearly seen in Figure 4d, there is no degradation of the ∆IS-D window throughout these tests, meaning that the endurance is at least 107. This therefore represents an endurance capability that is at least two to three orders of magnitude better than flash.[20, 32]

comparing its life expectancy to a current technology thats what 30 years old ? and getting a figure of 1000 years?

 

[Kannon Fodda]

it's always interesting to learn of potential new developments. The real question has to be if costs by scaling up mass production means it becomes relevant to mass use or if it remains a niche product. Reality is that most computing applications are now being held back by buggy or inefficient software rather than necessarily hardware. With a modern computer and SSD you can be working within 30 seconds of powering up, barely time to sit down and get comfortable in your chair. But an ideal of speeding that up further, by letting your Windows operating system hibernate rather than shut down is usually impractical as the IT adage of switch it off and on again is frequently necessary to clear out some of the buggy stuff that didn't empty from memory.

Certainly in datacentre type applications, on servers that need to be evermore powerful to handle multiple transactions, fast read/write of any storage would make a major difference. Assuming that this new technology is reasonably energy efficient, one can see potential. However, at end user level, compared to the difference of say the jump from HDD to SSD, costs are going to need to be very competitive for adoption by the masses. Even today, SSD technology remains prohibitively expensive for larger capacities and many rely on the HDD for volume storage capacity.

 

[Andacami]

Couple this to a (useful) quantum computer and you'd have yourself something truly impressive and game-changing.

My first proper job was to unsolder 128k worth of RAM chips from something called an Apple Macintosh and resolder a bunch of new chips to make 256k RAM; I did that in the late '80s. Data and programs were on 800k or double-sided 1.4MB floppy disks.

My phone (yes phone, not a computer or industrial system) has 6GB of RAM and hundreds of programs!

New tech will take time to become mainstream or affordable where necessity dictates as noted, but it won't be too long...

 

[Jimbohorlicks]

Hi Rapido925M thanks for the correction,yes it was a ZX81 ,I need a better memory or was it just predictive text,lol

 

[Gromett]

As can be clearly seen in Figure 4d, there is no degradation of the ∆IS-D window throughout these tests, meaning that the endurance is at least 107. This therefore represents an endurance capability that is at least two to three orders of magnitude better than flash.[20, 32]

comparing its life expectancy to a current technology thats what 30 years old ? and getting a figure of 1000 years?

I gave you the section in my last response

The first paragraph of section 5 clearly explains the methodology for establishing it's projected lifespan. This was an extremely conservative prediction based on the tests.

I would also point out that you mention endurance in your response, endurance is different to retention (lifespan). Endurance is measured in read/write cycles and retention is measured in years.
You could have a device with a low endurance of say 10 r/w cycles but the capability to retain the saved data for 1,000 years.
OR you could have one that has an endurance of say 10,000,000,000 cycles and the capability to retain the data for 1,000 years.

As you can see, retention and endurance are different but both extremely important. SSD's have a rentention of between 5-10 years. The accepted figure is round the 7 year mark. So if you save some data to your SSD and disconnect it from your system it is recommended that you reconnect it once every year or so and do a refresh.

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[Minxy]

Most of us will remember "dial up" internet and the wonderful sound of that modem as it sent information backwards and forwards:

.

 

[John Barrett]

I remember paying nearly a Grand for my boy's BBC Micro and Olivetti single point printer!

 

[sonny]

Would this take the place of my floppy ?

 

[Minxy]

Would this take the place of my floppy ?

Big or small size?

 

[sonny]

Big

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[Minxy]

Big

Really? With men it's usually an exaggeration but in this case I'll accept your answer as being truthful as it's the older style so dates you even more!

 

[Raul]

Big

I wouldn’t brag about big floppy.

 

[Ingwe]

I think I can spare 2 minutes while the lap top comes on. Actually my old thing takes 20 minutes

Over sharing!

 

[mitzimad]

I gave you the section in my last response

The first paragraph of section 5 clearly explains the methodology for establishing it's projected lifespan. This was an extremely conservative prediction based on the tests.

I would also point out that you mention endurance in your response, endurance is different to retention (lifespan). Endurance is measured in read/write cycles and retention is measured in years.
You could have a device with a low endurance of say 10 r/w cycles but the capability to retain the saved data for 1,000 years.
OR you could have one that has an endurance of say 10,000,000,000 cycles and the capability to retain the data for 1,000 years.

As you can see, retention and endurance are different but both extremely important. SSD's have a rentention of between 5-10 years. The accepted figure is round the 7 year mark. So if you save some data to your SSD and disconnect it from your system it is recommended that you reconnect it once every year or so and do a refresh.

has anyone every told you not to argue with idiots lol

 

[ambulancekidd]

Interesting info there @Grommet, thanks.

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[AndyPK]

Fingers crossed that this tech doesn’t go the same way as Bubble Memory……..

 

[Gromett]

has anyone every told you not to argue with idiots lol

You caused me to read it all for a second time which is never a bad thing

 

[Gromett]

Karl

I think you need a younger audience, for these things promising stuff years in the future, which for many of us old codgers may be beyond the grave

Seems it was of interest to quite a few people judging by the likes etc of the first post. Don't often get that many for a tech post

 

[the1andonly]

A modern Bubble memory?

 

[Gromett]

A modern Bubble memory?

Not physically, but has similar targets.
The 2 types of memory are
fast access with low energy states but are volatile (DDR) and tend to be less dense.
slow access with higher energy states but are non volatile. (flash)

There was thought to be no practical way to make volatile memory less volatile.
And physics restricts the speed you can access the non volatile memory which is why they moved to multistate where each bit holds more than a single bit of information. The problem with MLC and higher is that you lose retention and endurance (and is some case even speed) whilst gaining capacity.

It has long been thought that you cannot have a universal memory that is usable as both main system memory AND large scale storage (non volatile). This invention/discovery seems make a universal memory type practical. Though we shall see...

Currently the closest thing to this is optane memory in DIMM format. It allows for persistent memory and has relatively fast access times when compared to flash, but still slower than DDR4 for example.

This is worth a read if you are not familiar with it. Just a shame it is so pricey, I would love to have some to play with.

Intel® Optane™ Persistent Memory

Intel® Optane™ persistent memory represents a big memory breakthrough for your biggest data challenges.

www.intel.co.uk

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