The Key to Smaller, More Powerful Gadgets
Gadget buyers today can purchase PCs, cell phones and mp3 players with significantly more memory than their predecessors for just a few dollars more than they paid a few years ago. To wit: you can purchase an 80-gigabyte iPod today for the same price (around $250) you paid for one with just 30 gigabytes of memory two years ago. But consumers are in for a rude awakening if technology makers fail to find a way to shrink memory components enough to continue packing more of them into ever-tinier gadgets.Computers and other electronic devices use different types of memory to perform different functions. PCs use a hard disk drive, for example, to store large amounts of data for the long term and Random Access Memory (RAM)--also called "solid state" memory--to retain data outside the hard drive, where it can be accessed quickly and repeatedly. In an attempt to ensure that memory is not sacrificed with size, however, device makers are eyeing an experimental approach called "universal memory," which not only takes up less space but is also faster than the RAM now available. Currently only a handful of companies are investing in the budding technology, but that could change as new forms of universal memory emerge, most notably IBM's "racetrack" memory and Nantero, Inc.'s nano RAM (NRAM). [More]