A+ Weekend Bonus Question for July 4th

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No, I'm not doing this because it's the American celebration of Independence Day (also a nice little film starring Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum). I just ran across this and couldn't resist.

In case you think that DRAM and Flash memory are going to be around forever, guess again. There are a number of innovative alternative memory strategies that are currently being developed. While this information will definitely not be on the A+ exam, I thought I’d give you a bit of a preview. Of the choices below, which one(s) is/are actual alternative memory technologies under development? Choose all that apply. Answer later.

A. MRAM (magnetoresistive RAM): Nonvolative memory with fast read, write, and erase times. Considered a potential enabler of “instant on” computers.
B. FeRAM (ferroelectric RAM): Durable nonvolatile memory with fast read/write access and low power requirements.
C. CBRAM (conductive-bridging RAM): On/off states correspond to presence or lack of a conductive bridge between electrodes. Writing/erasing follows the formation and removal of the bridge; reading is done by measuring resistance between electrodes.
D. PCRAM (phase-change RAM): Read operation takes place by determining high/low resistance state of memory cell; write operation is triggered by ohmic heating with electric current.
E. Organic RAM: Created by placing metal layer between two organic layers. Retains data for weeks when the power is turned off. Shows potential as embedded memory.

 

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All of them

although MRAM is the closest to production, and is getting the most nose over by various companies

Organic ram could be upto 3 million times faster than current memory technologies whilst being smaller and lighter

another contender touted when i first entered into the industy was organic crystal memory

and there is also the implementations of carbon nanotubes forming complex meshes to provide thousands of times greater memory storage than currently available

 

i only know about MRAM im afraid. but my take on this whole thing is that, if they can get it right, nonvolatile RAM will replace HDD's as mass storage (assuming they can get decent capacity). think about it:

access and write speeds as fast (or faster) than current RAM
nonvolatile, so you wont lose the info when you power down
no moving parts - so less likely to break down!

Fergal

 

I agree with all of the above, for several reasons:

1. I've heard of most of them.

2 They all sound plausible.

3. I know Trip would never spend that long coming up with such a convincing red herring as any of those.

Agreed too - organic RAM I have read as tipped to be the poodles noodles on NV storage in the near future.

 

so hang on
your counting all of them because you believe trip would never make up such a complex red herring?

bah, hes a sneaky one that american, dont be fooled :P

 

Yep

 

They are all considered potential successors.

MRAM and FeRAM are the furtherest along and are actually here but too expensive. CBRAM, PCRAM and Organic RAM are all still at an early experimental stage.

 

Time's up. Answer is ABCDE. Obviously, that doesn't come as a surprise to anyone but I was reading about it in the EE Times www.eet.com and thought it was facinating. I wasn't really so much trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes and trying to raise some awareness. If even a few of you had to go online and look some of this stuff up, you learned something new (I know I did) which is the point of the QOTDs.

I'm probably going to be late putting up Monday's OOTDs. As you're probably aware, the American Independence Day is today but most businesses are going to close on Monday to celebrate. That means I have a three-day weekend to tackle my writing. Saturday was the Shabbatt so no work then and we had a house guest so politeness required that I not work while she was hear. I've been hammering away this afternoon and will be working all day tomorrow so forgive me if I become a tad inconsistant.

 

Good one trip, very interesting and I hadn't heard of any of them. Probably because I've had my head stuck in ISA books for so long the world of future chips has passed me by

I know now though

Pete

 

You sure know how to raise the dead, Pete. I almost didn't remember posting this one.

 

lol I am still living in the past Trip