The Crossbar tech startup from California has announced a new kind of memory chip that has an ability to store up to 1TB of data in a space that is practically as small as a postage stamp. Not only having more capacity thanks to its unique way of 3D stacking, the new RRAM, as Crossbar calls it, should be significantly faster than NAND as well as offer up better endurance.

The Crossbar announced the new "resistive RAM" (RRAM) in its press release and noted that the new Crossbar memory will definitely disrupt the US $60 billion flash memory market and also enable a lot of new possibilities in electronic devices, especially the portable ones. The company also noted that it has already manufactured working memory arrays "at a commercial fab", thus proving the simplicity and manufacturability of Crossbar Resistive RAM.

The main features and qualities of the new Resistive RAM starts off with highest capacity on the market with up to 1TB of storage on a single chip and multiple Terabytes with "3D stacking", lower power, highest performance with up to 20 times faster write than NAND, easiest SoC integration with simple stacking on logic in standard CMOS and advanced nodes, as well as impressive reliability with up to ten times more endurance when compared to NAND which gets it close to DRAM reliability.

Crossbar also released a chart that compares its RRAM to standard MLC NAND across multiple points and noted that RRAM memory cell is based upon "three simple layers" which consist of "a non-metallic bottom electrode, an amorphous silicon switching medium and a metallic top electrode".

Crossbar's RRAM is aimed to be used in consumer electronics, smartphones and tablets, enterprise storage, SSDs as well as cloud computing and plans to license its technology to SoC makers.







Source: PCPro.co.uk, Crossbar-inc.com.