... reads eagerly, impressed by the performance of a long-awaited product...
> its density and capacity falls far short of NAND flash
OK, but still...
> at least 512MB for M.2"
Um, 1/1000th of the capacity end-users might hope for. DAMN! That first line is one HELL of a marketing understatement. :/ Or is that a typo and it should read GB, since the PCIe add-in cards and U2 versions will offer GB capacities?
Obviously this isn't targeted directly at consumers, but as someone who played with the GigaByte i-RAM back in the day, I can see this attracting attention from many tweakers, especially as the density (assuming a typo, or for the non-M.2 formats) is far better than those had (4GB DDR on a PCI add-in card). Having real non-volatility without a clunky battery backup is awesome - I'm excited to see this long-awaited tech finally becoming available.
Capacity is not merely low. It is abysmal, at least from consumer perspective. This is a very, very niche product, it is not for consumers.
Most of the use cases would involve embedded real time hardware, which usually doesn't use a whole lot of memory to begin with. For such applications the provided capacity is ample.
Abysmal if you're limited to M.2 In that same sentence up to 8GB for U.2. Want blazing fast performance? You'd have enough money to upgrade your motherboard just for this anyway.
that ST-MRAM is on 90nm or was it 45nm now ! so a few iterations to go alongside the usual High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) upto v3 now will also help if they finally start producing things people want to actually buy on mass.
We've seen Everspin MRAM 1Mb (or 1MB?) chips used on the latest Asrock board to use the LSI3008 controller - the X99 Extreme11 if I recall correctly. This is clearly a step up :)
This will not be it. Lucky you, being so easily excitable. 99.99% of all those new "promising" technologies that promise to revolutionize speed, power usage, endurance or battery life end up being empty promises and broken hopes. All the necessary technology to make the world a perfect place for everyone has existed of decades, it is just not being allowed to do that, because corporations hold progress hostage, and use it to exploit people.
It kinda is, though. MRAM technology is not going to offer sufficient density to replace those products - certainly not affordably. The replacement will need to come from somewhere else.
I wouldn't be so fast to ignore this. SSDs have been in use since the 70s and took decades to make it to the consumer level. In 1977 Micro Memory had an SSD with 8KB for $650. It's OK if they start out small, they might have the next big thing...who knows.
Of course there's a chance MRAM will never develop or is physically impossible to develop into a replacement for NAND storage. I can't see how there won't be significant technical hurdles and, even if the engineering issues can be overcome, there are still financial and market forces to contend with that can stop a superior technology from surviving (Amiga anyone?). Being positive and upbeat is not akin to being foolish or unrealistic so don't mistake my excitement and interest as not being grounded with a healthy dose of realism.
Oh yeah? The last 10 years there have been news of "revolutionary new battery technology" what would completely destroy li-ion in terms of capacity, safety, endurance and weight, at least 2-3 times annually. Yet 10 years later, we still use li-ion. With the slight difference that it now explodes more than ever.
As for MRAM, it is intrinsically crippled by its operational principle. It will never really catch up on say nand, even long after nand has hit the brickwall of process scaling. Ways to fabricate high density MRAM exist, however it would be astronomically expensive and very, very slow.
There is a bell shaped curve for everything, and it has only one peak. Sometimes technology just can't get any better, and often it is already good enough. Take car batteries for example. They were lead-acid for decades, and they will be lead-acid in a 100 years, provided there are still people around, and they have fuel to drive cars with.
The facts are out there, for those who do not wish to be ignorant. It is not my job to educate, especially not the ineducable.
I'm still not seeing any support for this 99.99% claim you're making. As for the development of new products that make it to market...it's clear that you don't understand how a (relatively) free global market works with respect to R&D and innovation. Despite this lack of understanding, you insist on making grand, sweeping claims about how things should be in an attempt to prop up your own false idea of your mental superiority. There's no need to be like that and it's pretty clear that you feel so insecure about yourself that you can't help but take every possible baited hook you find in an on-going series of attempts to aggressively reassure yourself that your misguided feelings about your intellect are true. We've gone down this road before where I've found it necessary to give you a bit of a spanking and I think it'd be prudent of you realize you're diving into another pissing contest with a skunk. Backing off now might validate you aren't quite the foolish fish you've made yourself into up to this point.
@ddriver: "Oh yeah? The last 10 years there have been news of "revolutionary new battery technology" what would completely destroy li-ion in terms of capacity, safety, endurance and weight, at least 2-3 times annually. Yet 10 years later, we still use li-ion."
Putting aside other technologies still spinning up, we already have AgZn. Silver Zinc has higher energy density than Lithium-Ion, it is more environmentally friendly (95% of raw materials are recyclable), it has a better safety record (no runaway thermals, no FAA restrictions), and is (wait for it ...) already used in Europe (and apparently in U.S. military application for a while now). Lithium-Ion is just cheaper (Lithium is much more abundant) so it won't likely disappear. This is the same situation that has resulted in apparent popularity of Alkaline. Better choices exist, but the markets they are found in will always be defined by the cost to produce.
This one somehow made it to production and shipped. That puts it so far beyond nearly all competing technologies that it isn't funny. It also gives it a lifeline to R&D to give it a chance to keep up with NAND flash, DRAM, 3xpoint, etc.
Once it shipped, the 99.9% number wasn't even close anymore. But I can't claim that it is a good bet, just not a[n almost] sure loss like any non-shipping competing tech.
You are absolutely right! It's just like those darned energy companies that are holding back the engine which can run on only water! Those corporate corporatists, just always looking to make money and hold back progress! Ugh I feel so exploited now.
My mind instantly goes to American football player Saggitariutt Jefferspin when I see the name of the company. Also the toy top manufacturer Foreverspin.
I wanted that back in 2006 when MRAM was in the news. Is there actually going to be a "Buy Now" button for the SATA 2.5" SSD variant anytime soon? (yes like the proverbial kid in the back seat of the car, "Are we there yet?", lol)
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asmian - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
... reads eagerly, impressed by the performance of a long-awaited product...> its density and capacity falls far short of NAND flash
OK, but still...
> at least 512MB for M.2"
Um, 1/1000th of the capacity end-users might hope for. DAMN! That first line is one HELL of a marketing understatement. :/ Or is that a typo and it should read GB, since the PCIe add-in cards and U2 versions will offer GB capacities?
Obviously this isn't targeted directly at consumers, but as someone who played with the GigaByte i-RAM back in the day, I can see this attracting attention from many tweakers, especially as the density (assuming a typo, or for the non-M.2 formats) is far better than those had (4GB DDR on a PCI add-in card). Having real non-volatility without a clunky battery backup is awesome - I'm excited to see this long-awaited tech finally becoming available.
SarahKerrigan - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
Yep. Capacity is low. It's a tradeoff of capacity (and cost) for performance at this point.ddriver - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
Capacity is not merely low. It is abysmal, at least from consumer perspective. This is a very, very niche product, it is not for consumers.Most of the use cases would involve embedded real time hardware, which usually doesn't use a whole lot of memory to begin with. For such applications the provided capacity is ample.
chrnochime - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
Abysmal if you're limited to M.2 In that same sentence up to 8GB for U.2. Want blazing fast performance? You'd have enough money to upgrade your motherboard just for this anyway.chrnochime - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
Or get a new motherboard/figure out a way to use the U.2 standard which supports up to 8GB. Pay to play, so they say.BMNify - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
that ST-MRAM is on 90nm or was it 45nm now ! so a few iterations to go alongside the usual High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) upto v3 now will also help if they finally start producing things people want to actually buy on mass.Valantar - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Uhm, why would tiny m.2 sticks have any capacity advantage against far larger HHHL AICs or U.2 2.5" drives?This is tech that has barely left the lab. It's not anywhere near ready for consumer usage. Give it 5-10 years.
Ian Cutress - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
We've seen Everspin MRAM 1Mb (or 1MB?) chips used on the latest Asrock board to use the LSI3008 controller - the X99 Extreme11 if I recall correctly. This is clearly a step up :)BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
I'm always excited to see new storage technologies that might someday replace low endurance MLC and TLC flash. Cheers Everspin!ddriver - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
This will not be it. Lucky you, being so easily excitable. 99.99% of all those new "promising" technologies that promise to revolutionize speed, power usage, endurance or battery life end up being empty promises and broken hopes. All the necessary technology to make the world a perfect place for everyone has existed of decades, it is just not being allowed to do that, because corporations hold progress hostage, and use it to exploit people.BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
There's a 99.99% chance that your 99.99% number is not supported by facts. :)Spunjji - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
It kinda is, though. MRAM technology is not going to offer sufficient density to replace those products - certainly not affordably. The replacement will need to come from somewhere else.Tchamber - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
I wouldn't be so fast to ignore this. SSDs have been in use since the 70s and took decades to make it to the consumer level. In 1977 Micro Memory had an SSD with 8KB for $650. It's OK if they start out small, they might have the next big thing...who knows.BrokenCrayons - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Of course there's a chance MRAM will never develop or is physically impossible to develop into a replacement for NAND storage. I can't see how there won't be significant technical hurdles and, even if the engineering issues can be overcome, there are still financial and market forces to contend with that can stop a superior technology from surviving (Amiga anyone?). Being positive and upbeat is not akin to being foolish or unrealistic so don't mistake my excitement and interest as not being grounded with a healthy dose of realism.ddriver - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
Oh yeah? The last 10 years there have been news of "revolutionary new battery technology" what would completely destroy li-ion in terms of capacity, safety, endurance and weight, at least 2-3 times annually. Yet 10 years later, we still use li-ion. With the slight difference that it now explodes more than ever.As for MRAM, it is intrinsically crippled by its operational principle. It will never really catch up on say nand, even long after nand has hit the brickwall of process scaling. Ways to fabricate high density MRAM exist, however it would be astronomically expensive and very, very slow.
There is a bell shaped curve for everything, and it has only one peak. Sometimes technology just can't get any better, and often it is already good enough. Take car batteries for example. They were lead-acid for decades, and they will be lead-acid in a 100 years, provided there are still people around, and they have fuel to drive cars with.
The facts are out there, for those who do not wish to be ignorant. It is not my job to educate, especially not the ineducable.
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
I'm still not seeing any support for this 99.99% claim you're making. As for the development of new products that make it to market...it's clear that you don't understand how a (relatively) free global market works with respect to R&D and innovation. Despite this lack of understanding, you insist on making grand, sweeping claims about how things should be in an attempt to prop up your own false idea of your mental superiority. There's no need to be like that and it's pretty clear that you feel so insecure about yourself that you can't help but take every possible baited hook you find in an on-going series of attempts to aggressively reassure yourself that your misguided feelings about your intellect are true. We've gone down this road before where I've found it necessary to give you a bit of a spanking and I think it'd be prudent of you realize you're diving into another pissing contest with a skunk. Backing off now might validate you aren't quite the foolish fish you've made yourself into up to this point.BurntMyBacon - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
@ddriver: "Oh yeah? The last 10 years there have been news of "revolutionary new battery technology" what would completely destroy li-ion in terms of capacity, safety, endurance and weight, at least 2-3 times annually. Yet 10 years later, we still use li-ion."Putting aside other technologies still spinning up, we already have AgZn. Silver Zinc has higher energy density than Lithium-Ion, it is more environmentally friendly (95% of raw materials are recyclable), it has a better safety record (no runaway thermals, no FAA restrictions), and is (wait for it ...) already used in Europe (and apparently in U.S. military application for a while now). Lithium-Ion is just cheaper (Lithium is much more abundant) so it won't likely disappear. This is the same situation that has resulted in apparent popularity of Alkaline. Better choices exist, but the markets they are found in will always be defined by the cost to produce.
wumpus - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
This one somehow made it to production and shipped. That puts it so far beyond nearly all competing technologies that it isn't funny. It also gives it a lifeline to R&D to give it a chance to keep up with NAND flash, DRAM, 3xpoint, etc.Once it shipped, the 99.9% number wasn't even close anymore. But I can't claim that it is a good bet, just not a[n almost] sure loss like any non-shipping competing tech.
fanofanand - Wednesday, March 15, 2017 - link
You are absolutely right! It's just like those darned energy companies that are holding back the engine which can run on only water! Those corporate corporatists, just always looking to make money and hold back progress! Ugh I feel so exploited now.londedoganet - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
My mind instantly goes to American football player Saggitariutt Jefferspin when I see the name of the company. Also the toy top manufacturer Foreverspin.Magichands8 - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
"The initial nvNITRO products will use 32 or 64 MRAM chips to offer capacities of 1GB or 2GB..."Just, LOL.
zarcondeegrissom - Monday, May 8, 2017 - link
I wanted that back in 2006 when MRAM was in the news. Is there actually going to be a "Buy Now" button for the SATA 2.5" SSD variant anytime soon? (yes like the proverbial kid in the back seat of the car, "Are we there yet?", lol)