HP to replace flash and SSD in 2013

[WiCKeD]

While HP has made waves recently with several extraordinary business decisions, their PC arm is still on track to revolutionize electronics with the release of once theoretical memristor technology in SSD storage devices, within 18 months.

HP intends to have an alternative technology to flash on the market in eighteen months, an alternative to DRAM in three to four years and, following DRAM, a replacement for SRAM, Stan Williams, Senior Fellow at HP, told the IEF2011 meeting in Seville this morning.

"We’re planning to put a replacement chip on the market to go up against flash within a year and a half," said Williams, "and we also intend to have an SSD replacement available in a year and a half."

"In 2014 possibly, or certainly by 2015, we will have a competitor for DRAM and then we’ll replace SRAM."

"Flash is a done deal," said Williams, "now we’re going after DRAM, and we think we can do two orders of magnitude improvement in terms of switching energy per bit."

HP’s technology allows the memory layers to be put directly on top of the processor layer making for very fast systems on chip.

"We put the non-volatile memory right on top of the processor chip, and, because you’re not shipping data off-chip, that means we get the equivalent of 20 years of Moore’s Law performance improvement," said Williams.

"We’re running hundreds of wafers through the fab," said Williams, we’re way ahead of where we thought we would be at this moment in time."

HP’s approach is memristor, thin film technology which it allows it to stack an "arbitrary number of layers," said Williams, with 500 bn memristors per layer at 5nm.

Asked if HP was going back into the components business, Williams replied: "We’re the world’s largest purchaser of DRAM and the second largest buyer of flash and we’re trying to disrupt and re-arrange our supply chain. The plan is to license this technology to anyone who wants it, and we’ll teach them how to make it. But you’ll have to stand in line, we have a bunch of people queued for it. We’re doing this because, frankly, we didn’t see a hell of a lot of innovation happening out there."

Asked about the competition, Williams said: "Samsung has an even larger group working on this than we do."

Williams was appointed by David Packard to get HP into nanotechnology. HP has supported his efforts ever since. "I’ve been through seven CEOs and never had a glitch or a downturn," said Williams.

Full Article @ Electronicsweekly

[KingJames84]

sounds pretty bad *** to me, hope to see a consumer chip eventually

[jmknsd]

I've seen too many RAM replacements to believe anything anyone says until I see it.

[WiCKeD]

It could possibly be talk to boost the marketability of their PC arm to potential buyers. We will see...

[Perkomate]

i seriously hope that they actually can compete, it will mean that they retain some of their credibility as a computer company

[Slizzo]

Originally Posted by WiCKeD

Williams was appointed by David Packard to get HP into nanotechnology. HP has supported his efforts ever since. "I’ve been through seven CEOs and never had a glitch or a downturn," said Williams

This is pretty telling... He's seen seven CEOs in his time? That's quite a bit of turnover that would create a lot of instability no?

[Odanez]

This is the second time I have heard about the memristor, the last time was in 2008... Is this a good sign?

[ELItheICEman]

Originally Posted by Odanez

This is the second time I have heard about the memristor, the last time was in 2008... Is this a good sign?

Hard to say. Last I heard about the memristor (which, come to think of it, may have been five to ten years ago) it was just physically created. I'd think in the following years much work was done to reduce manufacturing cost and research applications for it. With something this new and potentially revolutionary, there's gotta be a long development time to make sure they get it right - not just in theory, but also in production.

So if you ask me, I think it's just fine. As for the projected timeline... I'm not sure I buy the 18 months forecast, but still - good to know they're confident in their research. I'd love to see new memory and storage applications in the near future.

[maxgull]

Will it be cheaper?

And dont forget the HP trademark, if you buy the new 2TB memristor stick, it will be preloaded with 1metric ton of HP useless Bloatware that slows you rig down by 80% and does absolutely nothing.

[Perkomate]

Originally Posted by maxgull

Will it be cheaper?

And dont forget the HP trademark, if you buy the new 2TB memristor stick, it will be preloaded with 1metric ton of HP useless Bloatware that slows you rig down by 80% and does absolutely nothing.

This. At least now they're out of the pre-built PC buisiness (apparently) this won't be such a problem. Hopefully.

[justinsn95]

So let me get this straight... its basically 5nm RAM? In the way that we currently have 32nm processors. What size is the RAM nowadays?

[maxgull]

Originally Posted by Perkomate

This. At least now they're out of the pre-built PC buisiness (apparently) this won't be such a problem. Hopefully.

That won't stop them, if they will still sell Printers or Cameras you will get the same ton-o-crap.

If you could turn all the existing HP Bloatware into Gasoline it would be 2cents a gallon.

[Kevster2004]

I'll pass judgement when i see actual working products

[Perkomate]

Originally Posted by maxgull

If you could turn all the existing HP Bloatware into Gasoline it would be 2cents a gallon.

If HP made gas, cars would be overtaken by a slug on tranqilisers.