Samsung Phase-Change RAM chip
Samsung Phase-Change RAM Chip
Everyone knows Moore's Law by now, regarding the doubling of semiconductor power every 18 months or so. Moore's ­famous article was published by Electronics magazine in 1965, and his law has more or less held true since then. Most people, however, are unaware of another Moore article, exploring the properties of chalcogenide glass, published five years later and now really beginning to pay off. The material has a unique property: It can switch between two different states of matter, crystalline and amorphous, which have very different electrical properties. The weird ability to change phases makes it the perfect element for a memory chip—and rewritable optical discs, by the way. Samsung has managed to create a 512Mb chip using the stuff, granting it two unique capabilities. First, it processes data faster than do standard NOR flash chips (which are usually made of silicon) because it doesn't require flash memory's erase-before-write cycle. Second, like flash memory, PRAM can save its state when the power is turned off. Extra-fast chips that let us resume computing instantly? Sounds fantastic. Unfortunately, chips won't be available commercially until 2008.—next: Operatoring Systems >