With the increasing use of flash memory in everyday devices, it seems like the days of the venerable hard drive may be coming quickly to a close. This is especially true with Freescale's (remember them?) announcement of commercial availablity (read: real world) of "magnetoresistive random-access memory" or MRAM.
Sometimes referred to as "universal" memory, MRAM could displace a number of chips found in every electronic device, from PCs, cell phones, music players and cameras to the computing components of kitchen appliances, cars and airplanes.
"This is the most significant memory introduction in this decade," said Will Strauss, an analyst with research firm Forward Concepts. "This is radically new technology. People have been dabbling in this for years, but nobody has been able to make it in volume."
Electronic memory is ubiquitous in today's world, but each flavor of memory-chip technology has different strengths and weaknesses. Often times, a single device has multiple types of memory chips to take advantage of the benefits of a particular technology.
Static and dynamic random access memory chips, used in PCs and elsewhere, are fast but lose data when the power is switched off. Flash memory chips, which are commonly found in music players, cameras and cell phones, retain information but are slower and degrade over time.
Anyone else excited to see this in a MacBook with an 8 hour battery life?
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