IBM pushing memory to new heights

IBM, a company known for making leaps and bounds in technology, announced a few days ago that they have made a breakthrough in memory. This breakthrough achieves 100-times the performance of current generation flash drives and RAM, the technology behind all of this is Phase Change Memory (PCM). Because of this new technology from IBM, companies will have more reliable drives that can read and write millions of cycles, compared to a few thousand found in today’s flash drives. This ultimately will make future drives cheaper and usable in any product. IBM has really hit a home run with this one.

Below is a rather lengthy press release regarding the finite details about how they manage to achieve 100 times performance and the benefits associated with it.

 

Press Release

Made in IBM Labs: IBM Scientists Demonstrate Memory Breakthrough for the
First Time

• Reliable multi-bit phase-change memory technology demonstrated
• Scientists achieved a 100 times performance increase in write latency
compared to Flash
• Enables a paradigm shift for enterprise IT and storage systems,
including cloud computing by 2016

ZURICH, June 30, 2011 – For the first time, scientists at IBM Research have
demonstrated that a relatively new memory technology, known as phase-change
memory (PCM), can reliably store multiple data bits per cell over extended
periods of time. This significant improvement advances the development of
low-cost, faster and more durable memory applications for consumer devices,
including mobile phones and cloud storage, as well as high-performance
applications, such as enterprise data storage. With a combination of
speed, endurance, non-volatility and density, PCM can enable a paradigm shift for enterprise IT and storage systems within the next five years.

Scientists have long been searching for a universal, non-volatile memory
technology with far superior performance than Flash – today’s most
ubiquitous non-volatile memory technology. The benefits of such a memory
technology would allow computers and servers to boot instantaneously and
significantly enhance the overall performance of IT systems. A promising
contender is PCM that can write and retrieve data 100 times faster than
Flash, enable high storage capacities and not lose data when the power is
turned off. Unlike Flash, PCM is also very durable and can endure at least
10 million write cycles, compared to current enterprise-class Flash at
30,000 cycles or consumer-class Flash at 3,000 cycles. While 3,000 cycles
will out live many consumer devices, 30,000 cycles are orders of magnitude
too low to be suitable for enterprise applications. (see chart for
comparisons).

“As organizations and consumers increasingly embrace cloud-computing models
and services, whereby most of the data is stored and processed in the
cloud, ever more powerful and efficient, yet affordable storage
technologies are needed,” states Dr. Haris Pozidis, Manager of Memory and
Probe Technologies at IBM Research – Zurich. “By demonstrating a multi-bit
phase-change memory technology which achieves for the first time
reliability levels akin to those required for enterprise applications, we
made a big step towards enabling practical memory devices based on
multi-bit PCM.”

Multi-level Phase Change Memory Breakthrough

To achieve this breakthrough demonstration IBM scientists in Zurich used
advanced modulation coding techniques to mitigate the problem of short-term
drift in multi-bit PCM, which causes the stored resistance levels to shift
over time, which in turn creates read errors. Up to now, reliable retention
of data has only been shown for single bit-per-cell PCM, whereas no such
results on multi-bit PCM have been reported.

PCM leverages the resistance change that occurs in the material — an alloy
of various elements — when it changes its phase from crystalline –
featuring low resistance – to amorphous – featuring high resistance – to
store data bits. In a PCM cell, where a phase-change material is deposited
between a top and a bottom electrode, phase change can controllably be
induced by applying voltage or current pulses of different strengths.
These heat up the material and when distinct temperature thresholds are
reached cause the material to change from crystalline to amorphous or vice
versa.

In addition, depending on the voltage, more or less material between the
electrodes will undergo a phase change, which directly affects the cell’s
resistance. Scientists exploit that aspect to store not only one bit, but
multiple bits per cell. In the present work, IBM scientists used four
distinct resistance levels to store the bit combinations “00″, “01″ 10″ and
“11″.

To achieve the demonstrated reliability, crucial technical advancements in
the “read” and “write” process were necessary. The scientists implemented
an iterative “write” process to overcome deviations in the resistance due
to inherent variability in the memory cells and the phase-change materials:
“We apply a voltage pulse based on the deviation from the desired level and
then measure the resistance. If the desired level of resistance is not
achieved, we apply another voltage pulse and measure again – until we
achieve the exact level,” explains Pozidis.

Despite using the iterative process, the scientists achieved a worst-case
write latency of about 10 microseconds, which represents a 100x performance
increase over even the most advanced Flash memory on the market today.

For demonstrating reliable read-out of data bits, the scientists needed to
tackle the problem of resistance drift. Because of structural relaxation
of the atoms in the amorphous state, the resistance increases over time
after the phase change, eventually causing errors in the read-out. To
overcome that issue, the IBM scientists applied an advanced modulation
coding technique that is inherently drift-tolerant. The modulation coding
technique is based on the fact that, on average, the relative order of
programmed cells with different resistance levels does not change due to
drift.

Using that technique, the IBM scientists were able to mitigate drift and
demonstrate long- term retention of bits stored in a subarray of 200,000
cells of their PCM test chip, fabricated in 90-nanometer CMOS technology.
The PCM test chip was designed and fabricated by scientists and engineers
located in Burlington, Vermont; Yorktown Heights, New York and in Zurich.
This retention experiment has been under way for more than five months,
indicating that multi-bit PCM can achieve a level of reliability that is
suitable for practical applications.

The PCM research project at IBM Research – Zurich will continue to be
studied at the recently opened Binnig and Rohrer Nanotechnology Center.
The center, which is jointly operated by IBM and ETH Zurich as part of a
strategic partnership in nanosciences, offers a cutting-edge
infrastructure, including a large cleanroom for micro- and nanofabrication
as well as six “noise-free” labs, especially shielded laboratories for
highly sensitive experiments.

The paper “Drift-tolerant Multilevel Phase-Change Memory” by N. Papandreou,
H. Pozidis, T. Mittelholzer, G.F. Close, M. Breitwisch, C. Lam and E.
Eleftheriou, was recently presented by Haris Pozidis at the 3rd IEEE
International Memory Workshop in Monterey, CA.

Share this article:

Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on linkedin
LinkedIn
Share on tumblr
Tumblr
Share on email
Email
Share on whatsapp
WhatsApp

Recent Posts

Gaming News

Should You Buy A Meta Quest 3S?

https://youtu.be/EVSbA2Yxx2k?si=G2KXmPguAB_45u5n Meta recencetly heald their Meta Connect conference and announced some excited things if you’re into VR and AR. The Meta Quest 2 was once the hottest item in their …

Halo Project Foundry Gaming News

What Is The Future of Halo?

https://youtu.be/a2CCRgycbLI?si=3juhSUwirUTpKWoJ There have been rumors for years about what is next for Halo. Today during the Halo World Championships, we got our answers. 343 Industries will now be known as …

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind Gaming News

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind | Developer Interview

It may surprise many, but there has never been a Power Rangers arcade beat ’em up game. (I know right!?!?!) Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind is a passion project …

Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch Gaming News

Jay and Silent Bob: The Chronic Blunt Punch | PAX West 2024

Going into PAX West 2024, I knew that I was going to enjoy ‘Jay and Silent Bob: The Chronic Blunt Punch’, but I did not know it was going to be …

Gaming News

Undisputed at PAX West 2024

Ash Habib has a true passion for boxing and Undisputed is his love letter to the sport. ‪@PlayUndisputed‬ aims to be both a technical and fun boxing game. The game …

Game Reviews

Is Star Wars Outlaws Any Good? – Review In Progress

Star Wars games have been around for longer than many gamers have been alive at this point. You have played as clone troopers, Jedi, fighter pilots, and now in Star …