Intel licenses unified Flash, SRAM, DRAM system

CHIP GIANT Intel is working with a memory firm and it appears that huge on die-caches might be the order of the day as a result of the alliance, in which several other memory companies appear to be playing a part.

Ovonics claims to have memory technology which it claims will dissolve the differences between Flash memory, SRAM and DRAM, and has forged an alliance with Intel to cooperate on the technology, called Ovonic Unified Memory (OUM).

According to information on the Ovonics Web site, OUM will allow fast computer architectures and non volatile data storage at the speed of DRAM.

The memory type can store over one bit of information per memory cell for higher storage densities.

OUM memory can be used with notebooks, pagers, mobile phones, hard drive storage and digital cameras, the firm claims. According to its Web site, such memory types can be tied closely to CPUs.

A separate company Ovonyx, has been developed between it, ECD, Tyler Lowrey and Intel, and OUM is licensed on a non-exclusive basis to the Santa Clara company.

Intel's interest is in the unification of Flash, SRAM and DRAM, and embedded memory, and according to sources close to the company's plans, level one or level two caches of up to 8MB are in the chip giant's sights.

You can find more about this somewhat intriguing alliance here. µ