Intel Doubles Capacity of Likely Flash Successor

Intel has announced a new technique that allows them to effectively double the storage capacity of a single phase-change memory cell without adding cost to the current fabrication process. "Phase-change memory differs from other solid-state memory technologies such as flash and random-access memory because it doesn't use electrons to store data. Instead, it relies on the material's own arrangement of atoms, known as its physical state. Previously, phase-change memory was designed to take advantage of only two states: one in which atoms are loosely organized (amorphous), and another where they are rigidly structured (crystalline). But in a paper presented at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, researchers illustrated that there are two more distinct states that fall between amorphous and crystalline, and that these states can be used to store data."

No longer binary?

[sm62704]

Will we now have computers that do base 4 arithemetic rather than base 2? At leat the memory of them? Or is this exactly what the INtell engineers are saying?

Could this new technology be used for CPUs as well, or only memory?

Re:No longer binary?

[imgod2u]

You'd be surprised how much of your computer isn't "binary" per se. If you have a modem, I think the standard is a base-16 transmission code. Flash memory currently contains 2-bits-per-cell cells. Hell, the quad-pumped signal going from memory to processor (if you have a Core 2 or P4) isn't "binary" per se.

Except...

[Khyber]

...the reliable low-cost high-production facilities already exist, as the process deviates very little from the CMOS manufacturing process. It's the same material that is used in rewritable optical media, and on top of that, it's basically just glass. Where you once needed stable unchanging silicon for memory/data storage, now we're just using different states of glass. Most of your concerns are addressed in this technology, and this is why I'm watching it very closely. Go read up a bit here. (PDF WARNING) [ovonic.com]

Oh, it also does have the theoretical capability to replace SRAM and DRAM. But in order for it to do that, it would need to be a little faster and we would have to be able to fully exploit all four states that it can be in for data. Also, read/write cycles would need a few more orders of growth to be used as a processor cache or extended RAM replacement, but as it is they're great for hard disk usage.