Crossbar Resistive RAM stores a terabyte on a chip

http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/05/crossbar-says-it-will-explode-the-60b-flash-memory-market-with-resistive-ram-which-stores-a-terabyte-on-a-chip/

by iand • 13 years ago

170 74 13 years ago

venturebeat.com

sillysaurus2• 13 years ago

Does anyone know if there has been progress in volatile memory tech? I'm hoping for 1TB RAM chips with 10x faster access times than current RAM. It will enable PC gaming to deliver unmatched immersive experiences, among other applications.

rorrr25• 13 years ago

Gaming is limited by the CPU/GPU, and a bit by the bandwidth in between. Not by the RAM speed/latency.

RyanZAG• 13 years ago

Not strictly true. Most algorithm choices in gaming can make trade offs between CPU and RAM. If you increase available RAM, you can usually use algorithms that are more RAM hungry and less CPU hungry for large speed benefits.

julius• 13 years ago

Consider moving around very fast in a very big world. 1 TB RAM would help alot :)

Symmetry4• 13 years ago

And a large part of what makes a better GPU is RAM bandwidth. If you're using integrated graphics there actually tends to be a quite large difference between using system RAM clocked at 1066 and RAM clocked at 1866. If you're using a discrete GPU card the RAM that makes a difference to your gaming performance is already soldered onto the card, but that might still see an improvement from faster memory technologies since the people who make those cards could use it.

dualogy• 13 years ago

Especially if this can be accessed as VRAM directly and just as fast by the GPU. Infinite-detail fractal-resolution destructable-animatable voxel terrains come to mind (not the Minecraft kind of "voxel", mind)..

Everlag• 13 years ago

The thing is at this point a lot of latency comes from the fact that each dimm is physically displaced from the cpu.

When you are on a timescale of nanoseconds even electricity's speed can be slow when being compared to something like intel's l4 cache which is on-die.

For any type of volatile memory that latency will exist until mobo designers move the ram closer to the cpu or adopt optical interfaces between parts.

For some cool calculations that can put things in perspective take the speed of light as 299 792 458 m/s and take the time of a nanosecond as 10^-9 seconds to get ~0.3 m/ns for light. That means that for every third of a meter the dimms are away from the cpu means a constant 1ns delay in terms of latency.

joe_the_user• 13 years ago

I remember memristers were supposed to do something like this.

Anyone have an idea if this is related or unrelated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor

jotm• 13 years ago

Well, hopefully some competition will prompt Hynix to get the ball rolling, instead of just squeezing the last dollars out of current flash technology...

pfraze3• 13 years ago

As I understand it, one of the (more interesting) characteristics of memristors is that they can do computation. They don't mention anything like that here, so I doubt it.

standel3• 13 years ago

Memristor do no computation at all. It follows the same idea as the described RRAM. High density, low cost, persistent, low power consumption, high write/read throughput, low latency. To the exception that it could even replace RAM, not only nand devices. I don't remember of the top of my head reading performance but it was clearly closer to RAM levels.

ars3• 13 years ago

A memristor can do computation, but you don't have to do computation.

Like like a regular transistor can be used for computation or ram.

Tuna-Fish• 13 years ago

A memristor can be set up as a logic element that does computation, or as a memory storage element, just like a transistor (only persistent).

For some strange reason, the tech press took this to mean that a memristor array can be dynamically reconfigured to act as logic or ram in the same device. This is mostly false -- while yes, this kind of devices can be built (with transistors, they are typically called field-programmable gate arrays, or FPGAs), this requires you to be able to reconfigure not just the gates, but all the wiring that goes into them, meaning that a reconfigurable array has to be more than an order of magnitude larger, and a few times slower than a non-reconfigurable one.

You never want to use an FPGA for ram because you can get proper, non-reconfigurable ram for (way) less than tenth of the cost. You never want to use a fpga for logic if you can afford an asic, because you can be several times faster with hard-baked logic.

Memristors will mean nice FPGAs that retain state on power down, but they will not mean a revolution of dynamically reconfiguring devices.

Oh, and memristor logic is slower than transistor logic (you can do with less gates, but the gates switch slower) so the ability to use memristors for logic elements will initially mostly be a win in memory devices where the necessary logic to manage the device can be made out of the same structures the device is made of.

wmf• 13 years ago

Memristors are HP's variant of RRAM.

i_am_dead• 13 years ago

These are memristors.

pfraze3• 13 years ago

It can access that data 20 times faster than the best breed of flash memory
could also perform its storage functions at 20 times lower power
non-volatile
10 times the endurance of NAND flash chips that it could replace

If this is true, wow, but I have a hard time believing it.

31reasons• 13 years ago

They haven't mentioned the price or may be I missed it. That may be the important factor.

kcorbitt• 13 years ago

They also don't compare the read speed (17 MB/s) to existing flash memory. They showcase an amazing write speed, but most applications access data a lot more frequently than they create it.

ars3• 13 years ago

The price of a chip is more or less the die size. And they clearly show a smaller die than existing technology.

DennisP• 13 years ago

From another article:

"[Crossbar's CEO] could not estimate the price of a 1TB RRAM module, but said it will cheaper than NAND flash partly because RRAM is less expensive to manufacture."

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2045926/startup-crossbar-pits...

Einherji3• 13 years ago

I agree, these claims seem incredible, I would love to see things like this backed up with a demo.

keerthiko• 13 years ago

That is flipping amazing if true.

Also, that "Crossbar Chip Design" graphic made me chuckle. It is nearly meaningless by itself, and is placed so far away from the context it's discussed in, it almost remains that way unless you're trying to connect it.

redangstrom2• 13 years ago

Let's be cautiously optimistic. Every few years a new memory tech comes along with tons of articles about how it's going to displace the current one in only 2 years. (RRAM has been one of "the new ones" for years.)

I'm not saying it won't happen, but on the journey from idea to millions of units, a test chip is just the beginning, and in the meantime, NAND is moving.

Look at how slowly NAND has replaced rotating magnetic storage: it's been around since the 80's. Decades of iteration have brought it to a place where it's compelling for non-niche use cases.

GravityWell• 13 years ago

Crossbar believes it can write data to its chip at 140 megabytes per second, compared to 7 megabytes a second for flash. Read performance is 17 megabytes per second, with a random read latency of 30 nanoseconds.

The write performance sounds good, but the read performance seems very low. Also I don't know where they get 7 megs per second for flash. Sounds like the picked the worst performer to compare to.

I'd be more impressed if they had something on the market.

WatchDog• 13 years ago

The numbers are fairly suspicious, they don't reference the density of the flash they are benchmarking or if they are behind controllers.

Flash chips are generally multiplexed and behind a smart controller that compresses and and caches data, which can greatly effect the throughput numbers.

rossjudson• 13 years ago

Lots of other stuff to know -- what's the BER (bit error rate), what's the programming model (page erase, like flash)? How many simultaneous reads can you push through? Writes? Can you halt an ongoing operation or change it mid-stream?

Filligree• 13 years ago

They're talking about per-chip performance. Flash write performance really is that low - they get around it by spreading writes to multiple chips.

Crossbar can do the same thing, in which case the same number of chips provide higher throughput. Read latency is not parallelisable, of course, so there'll be no way for flash to catch up there without making fundamental advances.

That is, if all these numbers are correct.

drcode• 13 years ago

This article makes a lot of extraordinary claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

In this case, that means a reputable tech reporter from a reputable publication has to say "this is the real deal" before these guys can be taken seriously.

(I'm not doubting that they have any tech, it's just that they seem to be promising something with no downsides, which in most cases means a marketing team has spun out of control.)

standel3• 13 years ago

This is a very competitive and huge market. Lot of companies running to obtain the next disruptive tehcnology/product. No one is really ahead of the others for now. So I guess it will be difficult to have any good tech reports without any marketing touch in it :)

Alex39172• 13 years ago

"This article makes a lot of extraordinary claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

Does it? It just sounds like a normal memristor to me.

standel3• 13 years ago

Memristor does not seem to be normal neither. Is there any on the market?

ajross• 13 years ago

In the same sense as you might refer to a "normal" quantum computer or "normal" cancer cure, I guess.

The phrasing in the article is a little wishy washy, but it sounds like this company is going to production with a TB-per-IC-density non volatile storage product. If true, that's huge news.

anigbrowl2• 13 years ago

Well you could verify the patents for yourself, you could cross-check the opinion of the Convergent Semi analyst for yourself, and you could reflect on the fact that Kleiner Perkins is a well-established VC firm, and a bunch of other things.

guelo• 13 years ago

According to the wikipedia article on RRAM there are several companies working to bring this tech to market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistive_random-access_memory

acqq• 13 years ago

And according to this article, the companies that name their memristor variant as something else do so because of the patents:

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1262578

angersock• 13 years ago

Aha! So, this is memristor arrays?

Symmetry4• 13 years ago

Given the graphic on the top a chip with 8 GByte at 77mm^2 I have no idea where they're getting the "Terabyte on a chip" thing. Unless the mean a Terabyte on a 200 mm die?

ars3• 13 years ago

They probably mean TB for the whole device, and each chip is smaller. This could also be a picture of an earlier model.

solistice• 13 years ago

Also they're stacking the device 3 dimensionally, so they could be referring to 125 layers of 8gb RRAM, which would spit out the 1TB number.

joenathan• 13 years ago

FTA: "The company can put a terabyte of data, or about 250 hours of high-definition movies, on a single chip that is smaller than the equivalent flash memory chip (as pictured at top)."

mdaniel• 13 years ago

How appropriate that this article and the following comic come out on the same day:

http://thedoghousediaries.com/5275 (Amazing Scientific Breakthroughs)

MarcScott• 13 years ago

Interesting to see that Samsung started mass production of their 3D NAND memory yesterday.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/05/samsung-ships-first-3d-ve...

touristtam• 13 years ago

maybe a more tech oriented article would have been preferable: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/05/crossbar_uncloaks_fa...

(venturebeat sounds like a investor magazine to me)

nshepperd• 13 years ago

It's nice to see memristors bearing fruit (or about to soon) finally.

gr3yh47• 13 years ago

" It could also perform its storage functions at 20 times lower power, extending the battery life of devices using it to weeks, months, or years. "

no, reducing RAM power 20x does not extend battery life of devices to weeks. Anything with a screen or active antenna will likely not see much of a difference

megablast• 13 years ago

I used to think the same, but with the new Intel chip, you can now get about 12 hours out of a macbook air.

alphakappa• 13 years ago

Where does the extra battery life come from? The CPU? Graphics? Better RAM? Better wifi/BT? Software improvements in the OS and apps to use power more efficiently? Lower power screen?

Battery life is affected by such a multitude of components that it's hard to extrapolate savings in one component to the battery life of the complete device.

dzhiurgis• 13 years ago

The damn beast doesn't even heat up when yes > /dev/null

Einherji3• 13 years ago

Yes, but that has nothing to do with the RAM. Processors take a significant chunk of the platform power while RAM in almost all cases does not anymore.

contingencies• 13 years ago

Sad to think of the implications for the NSA.

Crossbar Resistive RAM stores a terabyte on a chip

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