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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer who wrote (103683)	5/26/2000 12:10:00 PM
From: wily	Respond to of 186894

Yes, you could buy one and crack it open.... Other than that I don't know where. Now, my reason for asking: Intel is developing now, in collaboration with Ovonyx: OUM, a nonvolatile memory based on electrical phase change technology (the optical version is what is used presently on all RW optical media -- DVD and CD). OUM is a thin-film architecture, and currently can be made as small as 6L (with further optimizations possible to 4L or even 2L since it only requires two current lines and a diode besides the phase-change element), which is half the size of current Intel Flash memory cells and smaller (by how much, I'm not sure) than present DRAM. It is also possible that in the near future it will be able to store 3 or 4 bits per cell, as the optical version is now in the process of being enabled for 3-bit/spot storage. (Note also, that performance, i.e., speed and power usage, is enhanced as size is reduced, so at future design shrinks OUM's advantage will grow dramatically over DRAM since they are having trouble getting the capacitor any smaller). Here is a picture (labeling is mine) from a circa 1997 patent. (The design could have changed substantially since then): home.rochester.rr.com The development work is said to be "aggressive": they are using a production line at the Santa Clara plant, starting about 5 8" wafers per week. Ovonyx has 6 or 7 employees there and Intel has about 15 working on the project (this information is from my recent visit to ECD). I should point out that the product focus for these samples is Flash-replacement, not embedded or anything else, although, since this is the first productization of OUM, it still leads to all other applications. So system and embedded applications may still be years away (or not...). So, this would be quite a revolution in on-die cache capacity if the integration on the cpu was feasible. In the development agreement announcement, embedded was stated as a goal, and Tyler Lowrey has made broad hints that this could be a very big thing. Intel's licensing agreement with Ovonyx is not exclusive, but I'm wondering how this may play out in the cpu wars. wily