How would you like your iPhone 9 or iPhone 910 to pack 1TB of memory? That may be possible due to a form of resistive RAM (RRAM) that can purportedly be made using regular equipment at room temperatures.
Scientists at Rice University say their breakthrough silicon oxide technology for high-density, next-generation computer memory is one step closer to mass production. Rice’s silicon oxide memories are a type of two-terminal, RRAM technology.
RRAM is under development worldwide and expected to supplant flash memory technology in the marketplace within a few years because it’s faster than flash and can pack far more information into less space, says James Tour, a professor of mechanical engineering and nanoengineering and of computer science at Rice. For example, manufacturers have announced plans for RRAM prototype chips that will be capable of storing about one terabyte (1TB) of data on a device the size of a postage stamp — more than 50 times the data density of current flash memory technology.
If my future iPhone could pack as much memory as the current, mid-line iMac, imagine what storage space MacBooks and MacBook Airs could handle. And imagine an iMac maxed out with RRAM. It could hold every song ever written and ever movie ever released.
Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
