Phase Change Memory (PCM) Explored as NAND Replacement in SSDs

TechTarget put out an interesting read on new technologies that will either supplement, or replace, flash memory.

Long under development with some iterations of SSDs as soon as the late 70’s, these types of accelerated storage solutions can take quite some time to develop.

One could say that the glacial pace of advances is about as fast as an HDD….however, the urge to move forward  is always needed to satiate the rapid pace dictated by Moores Law.

As always, cost is a huge factor,

“Until an alternative technology meets or beats NAND on cost, its unlikely to become a serious contender in enterprise storage, no matter how great its technological advantage.”

But the performance payoff is the key….

IBM Research, for instance, turned heads over the summer with its announcement that thermal-based PCM might one day enable systems to retrieve data 100 times faster than NAND flash and to endure at least 10 million write cycles, an exponential improvement over the 30,000 write cycles of enterprise multi-level cell (eMLC) flash

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