Hitachi, U.K. Researchers Create New Storage Device

LONDON -- Hitachi Ltd. of Japan and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom said they developed a new way of storing data on a semiconductor chip that the researchers said potentially may replace traditional memory chips and hard-disk drives in personal computers.

The researchers call the new device a PLEDM, or Phase-state Low Electron(hole)-number Drive Memory. They said it has the advantages of being fast, like today's dynamic random-access memory chips, as well as nonvolatile, or able to store data when the power is off, like a flash chip or hard disk. The PLEDM chip also may use very little power. Hitachi Marketing Manager Robert Fusco said the technology could take five years to commercialize but eventually could store multiple gigabits of data on a single chip, compared with about 64 megabits in today's average chip. A thousand megabits make up a gigabit.

Others working on improving memory chips include large memory-chip makers, Pageant Technologies International and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Ramtron International Corp. , Colorado Springs, Colo., and Energy Conversion Devices Inc., Troy, Mich.


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