64 Mbyte Write once CMOS Chip from Standard Fabs

brian wang writes "Matrix semiconductor has taped out 64 Mbyte write once chip. It is 8 layer memory that can be made at standard fabs. They will be made at Taiwan Semiconductor initially in a 0.25micron process. It will be compatible with Flash. Obviously when they move to 0.18 micron and 0.13 and 0.10 micron processes that already are producing chips the memory size will shoot up to rival CDRoms from single chips. Revolutionary impact for handhelds, PCs, ROMDrives etc..." See, I knew it: Little is better.

No more scratches

[Anonymous Coward]

But they will not burn so nice and bright in the microwave...
What a shame.

On the serious side tho, it looks like a very viable technology for permanent information sharing between many devices...

OS BIOS

[lavaforge]

I'm not too much of a hardware guy, but I do know that the BIOS of a computer are made of CMOS. I also know that they're extremely small. Would this have any impact on instant boot projects like LinuxBIOS? With 64MB you could fit pretty much the entire boot procedure. That would be sweet.

Re:How much will be "enough"?

[Carl Drougge]

If the technology is there, people will want to carry (DVD-quality) movies around (without a "huge" DVD..). Once we're there, people will want to carry many of them. And then 3D-movies.. and after that I'm sure someone will come up with something even bigger.

Re:How much will be "enough"?

[87C751]

Interesting stuff, but how much storage space will we ultimately need to carry with us?

I think it's not so much "how much" as it is "what kind". This is a nicely portable write-once medium that operates like a conventional CF card. I see it as handy for carrying keying materials (like your GPG private keyring) without having to worry about Mallet trojanizing its contents. More portable and sturdier than a CD-R.

Critical question for comparison with CDs

[Myco]

One thing I didn't see answered in the article: these chips are write-once, we know that. But does that mean you must write the entire chip in one session, or could it be done incrementally?

Put another way, does write-once in this case mean it's like a CD (commit entire data payload in one chunk and seal it forever), or like a blank book (fill in pages as you go).

If it can be done incrementally, that represents a significant advantage over CDs, other factors being (for the sake of argument) equal.

Re:How much will be "enough"?

[Tsar]

In ten years, if I can have a 1-cm resolution 3D map of my city, which will overlay on my HUD-equipped Oakleys and provide interactivity with any object in my visual environment, and that database requires a 500GB solid state 3D-memory device, then that's what I'm going to want. Learn from history: If you build it, the applications will come.

I once heard a story (may be an urban legend—anybody have good data?) that Bill Gates once visited Intel's offices and that while he and Andy Grove strolled about the facility, Grove mentioned that it was difficult to imagine a widespread consumer market for the blazingly fast CPUs on the far right of Intel's roadmap. According to the story, Gates replied with something like, "Don't worry; continue to develop and market faster chips, and we will continue to develop and market innovative and compelling software that will bring it to its knees." I'd wager that the same goes for memory technology.

Re:write once? umm... no thanks.

[Sunken Kursk]

what's the point if I can only write once?

Tell him what some uses are, Johnny!

• Low-cost, high-capacity memory for embedded devices
• Smaller, scratch resistant replacement for CDs (Especially good for singles)
• "Rolls of film" for a digital camera without spending $30 on a new flash card. This makes it possible for people with no/slow computers to use digital cameras easily and maintain a digital copy of their images.
• Here's the one nobody's thought of, evidence collection. Because the device is WOPM (Write once, play many), police departments will be able to use it in their digital cameras, camcorders, etc. This makes it much more difficult for someone to say "The photos/tape was doctored" when you can show them the images direct from a WOPM source.

unless they really make the modules so cheap they're practically giving them away

I believe that's what they're envisioning. From the article..."The company envisions its chips being cheap enough to be sold in multipacks at grocery checkout counters". Wow, an 8 pack of 64 meg memory modules for the same price as a pack of batteries? Even one for the same price as a pack of batteries would be worth the cost.

I formally declare this a good thing. But don't take my word for it, read the article yourself.

Re:How much will be "enough"?

[Skinny Rav]

Well, it would be nice to carry around my ~/. directory, but this is just a couple hundred MB. The whole music collection (maybe even uncompressed, just wav format) in a device size of a typical mp3 player - that's the good thing. I move around a lot and taking lots of cdroms/CDs is quite inconvenient.

Or maybe different: forget PDAs, mp3 players and so on. Think about a key-ring device, like these USB storages, just with a couple of GBs on it, so you can carry _everything_ you need on it, like your home directory, which means you just plug it in any compatible computer (any unix, linux, MacOSX or whatever) and you feel at home: all your files, all your settings, your mp3s, your emacs and mutt configs (OK, I know _these_ would fit on a floppy ;-) are right here, just log in and enjoy.

Surely, I would like a thing like that.

Then of course a question: what is the power consumption of such memory compared to hard drives? Would it increase or reduce battery lifetime in notebooks? Well, for sure it would be faster and not so noisy as HD.

Raf