Everyone knows that solid state drives are quick, but capacity remains a major concern. Intel and Samsung have tackled the problem with a technology called 3D NAND which builds upon existing SSD technology by adding more planes to each memory chip’s die. The new Samsung 850 Evo drives, which can achieve a capacity of 120GB on a piece of hardware barely larger than a thumb drive, have proven 3D NAND can produce results.
But it’s not the only game in town. Crossbar, a hardware startup founded in 2010, has been pouring time and money into an alternative called resistive random access memory, or RRAM. This is a “non-volatile” form of random access memory, which means it retains information without an electrical current applied (the DDR-RAM in your PC forgets all its data when your computer is powered off).
Crossbar’s approach involves RRAM stacked into a cube-like structure that expands in three dimensions, making capacities of up to one terabyte theoretically possible on a single chip. Sounds great, right? Just one problem; placing so much memory so close normally results in current leakage, which can increase power consumption at best and make a drive useless at worse.Or, to use Crossbar’s own words, “multiple parallel conduction paths introduce leakage currents that limit the maximum array size and increase power consumption.”……..
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