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Sharp and Elpida are developing memory technology
JAPANESE TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES Sharp and Elpida are working on next generation memory chips that are several orders of magnitude faster than NAND flash storage.
NAND flash storage is so old hat, don't you know. Why hang about on slow NAND flash when you can turn it up to 11 with resistive random access memory (ReRAM) in 2013 thanks to Sharp and Elpida. According to Reuters, Nikkei has reported that the two companies are co-developing ReRAM and will be ready to ramp up production within the next couple of years.
The researchers claim that ReRAM is ten thousand times faster than NAND flash, which in our book is insanely quick.
The Nikkei business daily report said that ReRAM will enable HD movies to be downloaded in a matter of seconds. Assuming that there's adequate network bandwidth available to drive it, of course. ReRAM is also allegedly so power efficient it sucks almost no power when sitting idle in standby mode.
If ReRAM does hit production without any hitches, it's possible that NAND flash will be as much use as a Zip disc by 2014. But naturally, things are never that easy.
Toshiba is working on competitive flash memory and Samsung is developing phase-change random access memory (PRAM) and magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) chips. HP Labs has also partnered up with Hynix to co-develop memristors to replace NAND flash memory. µ
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"If ReRAM does hit production without any hitches, it's possible that NAND flash will be as much use as a Zip disc by 2014."
Optimistic to the point of fallacy, I'm afraid. ReRAM's being considered as a cache technology to support SSDs. It _can't_ be a replacement for flash RAM or HDD, because it needs power to retain its contents.
And let's not forget that HP has been working on building ReRAM using memristors for some time now, so it's not even new news. Just another couple of manufacturers joining the party.