Today’s Wall Street Journal has an update on the state of data storage in computers, and how flash memory is beginning to replace the ubiqitous hard-disk drive. They make note of the many advantages afforded by flash memory, how the cost of flash memory is halving every 12 months, as well as it’s recent appearance in the Sony UX90, and the Samsung Q1-SSD UMPC computers.

Some hard-disk manufacturers are fighting back by offering hybrid drives that combine flash with conventional disks, but the Journal implies that this is a rearguard action.

The article concludes by suggesting that Freescale Semi’s newly-developed MRAM chip (pictured) may pose a future challenge to flash memory. MRAM combines the speed of SRAM memory with the non-volatility of flash and is much faster than flash but quite expensive.

But even MRAM faces/will face competition. Word from Taiwan is that DRAM makers Nanya, ProMOS, Powerchip Semiconductor Corporation (PSC) and Winbond are nay-saying MRAM, and are instead promoting Ovonic Universal Memory (OUM).

And competitors to these competitors are technologies such as NRAM (Nano-RAM), and FRAM (Ferro-Electric RAM). The quest for a universal memory continues…

Flash Memory Puts Punch in Portable PCs - Wall Street Journal, July 20, 2006
..see also..
Not Just a Flash in the Pan - Economist, 10 Mar 2006

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