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Crossbar develops 1 Terabyte RAM on chips smaller than a postage stamp

Crossbar RAM

Crossbar’s non-volatile memory is also capable of 3D stacking, making it more space and energy efficient

Crossbar has unveiled a new type of very high capacity and high-performance RAM, which can fit up to 1 Terabyte of memory on a single, stamp-sized chip.

The US start-up company’s Crossbar Resistive RAM (RRAM) technology will be capable of storing up to 250 hours of HD movies on a single 200mm2 chip, and has already been developed into a working memory array at a commercial fabrication plant. This signals the company’s readiness to begin the first phase of creating storage products based on the architecture.

With a three-layer structure, the technology can be stacked in three dimensions, letting multiple terabytes of storage fit on a single chip. Its simplicity, stackability and CMOS compatibility enable logic and memory to be integrated onto a single chip.

George Minassian, Crossbar’s chief executive officer, said that “Non-volatile memory is ubiquitous today, as the storage technology at the heart of the over a trillion dollar electronics market – from tablets and USB sticks to enterprise storage systems.

“Today’s non-volatile memory technologies are running out of steam, hitting significant barriers as they scale to smaller manufacturing processes. With our working Crossbar array, we have achieved all the major technical milestones that prove our RRAM technology is easy to manufacture and ready for commercialization. It’s a watershed moment for the non-volatile memory industry.”

He added that the technology will deliver 20x faster write performance, 20x lower power consumption, and 10x the endurance at half the die size, compared to today’s best-in-class NAND Flash memory.

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