China develops fastest flash memory device.

Fastest flash memory

A research team at Fudan University has developed the fastest ever flash memory device called “Poxiao” or Dawn, the Chinese Scientists claim, the new memory chip is 10,000× faster than today’s tech, with near-zero power and 100-year retention.

The fastest semiconductor storage device is a non‑volatile flash memory that reportedly programs a single bit in 400 picoseconds (0.0000000004 s) that is roughly 25 billion operations per second. One picosecond is one trillionth of a second.

To put it in the simpler terms, the new memory tech could make your RAM and SSD look like floppy disks of the past.

The static and dynamic RAM (SRAM, DRAM) used nowadays can write data in 1–10 nanoseconds. They lose all stored data when power is lost, hence are volatile.

Compact flash Memory chip

Flash memory on the other hand is non-volatile as it retains data without power, but flash memory also has a drawback.

It typically requires microseconds to milliseconds per write operation, making it far too slow for modern AI accelerators, which process terabytes of parameters in real time.

The achievement of Fudan University is significant, it surpasses the speed of traditional flash memory and even some volatile memories. The device is smaller than a grain of rice.

AI computing power

The research may help overcome the limits of information storage speed, it may also solve a key technical bottleneck restricting the potential of AI computing power.

“It’s been 60 years since Bell Labs introduced the floating-gate transistor. If we had just stuck with traditional theories or relied on material changes, we wouldn’t have made any major breakthroughs. That is why we have focused on developing a completely new approach to flash memory,” Liu said.

The researchers introduced a new approach to accelerate flash memory, allowing electrons to directly transition from a low-speed to a high-speed state without the need for a “warm-up” phase.

This new theory, called “2D-enhanced hot-carrier injection” – led to the development of a prototype device.

According to a report published by scmp.com, the “Poxiao” flash memory device is now moving towards production. Combined with CMOS technology, the chip has already been successfully fabricated at the kilobyte level.

Within five years, the team hopes to scale it to tens of megabytes and have it licensed and ready to market.

The team began researching flash memory devices in 2015. In 2021, they proposed an initial theoretical model, and last year, they developed a superfast flash memory device with an 8-nanometre channel length, surpassing the physical size limit of silicon-based flash memory, which was around 15 nanometres.

According to an article on Fudan University’s website, it is the world’s fastest semiconductor storage technology to date, achieving equal storage and computation speeds. “Once scaled up for mass integration, it is expected to completely disrupt the current storage architecture,” the article said.

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