Micron Releases Phase Change Memory for Mobile Devices

Micron has made the first chips with phase change memory available for large-scale consumption. The memory manufacturer will supply products that contain a phase change memory with a 1Gb chip, combined with 512Mb DDR2.

The new memory chips, or more correctly: packages containing the pcm chips and lpddr2 chips, will be supplied to manufacturers of mobile equipment such as laptops, tablets and mobile phones. The packages would mainly be optimized for so-called feature phones, later more advanced devices such as smartphones and tablets would follow. According to Micron offers the availability of chipset and mobile packages manufacturers the opportunity to optimize their products to take advantage of the benefits of phase change memory.

Phase change memory is said to be a lot more economical than conventional memory and also have a longer lifespan. Devices would, among other things, start faster with Microns PCM chips on board. The phase change memory developed by Micron is produced at 45nm. It doesn’t work like conventional memory by holding charge in capacitors to store bits. In pcm, the difference in resistance between a crystalline form and an amorphous state of a special material is responsible for the ones and zeros. The memory type takes its name from the transition between the two states, the phase change.