If memory — physical and virtual — is one of the technological building blocks of the modern world, IBM thinks it has found a way to build a faster, better world for business. It has come up with a new version of phase-change memory that promises to make smartphone operating systems load faster and give companies speedier access to database software.

As IDG News Service reports, PCM “is one of a handful of emerging technologies that aim to be faster than flash and less expensive than DRAM. They could give enterprises and consumers faster access to data at lower cost, but there are challenges to overcome before that happens.”

IBM is aiming to surpass one of those hurdles by cramming more data per cell of memory. The company claimed last month that it can now put three bits of data per cell (called Triple-Level Cell PCM), which, as IDG notes, is “50 percent more than the company showed off in 2011 with a two-bit form of PCM. Greater density lets IBM squeeze more capacity out of what is still a pricey technology.”

PCM functions by changing a glass-like substance from an amorphous to a crystalline form using an electrical charge, IDG notes. PCM could serve as a faster substitute than flash memory and a less expensive alternative to dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), but is still not widely used. IBM thinks PCM technology could have some clear uses for businesses.

IBM notes that businesses have many options for memory, including the familiar DRAM, hard disk drives and flash. However, IBM argues that “in the last several years PCM has attracted the industry's attention as a potential universal memory technology based on its combination of read/write speed, endurance, non-volatility and density.” For example, IBM states that “PCM doesn't lose data when powered off, unlike DRAM, and the technology can endure at least 10 million write cycles, compared to an average flash USB stick, which tops out at 3,000 write cycles.”

The new variant of PCM should help companies deal with the growing amount of data from mobile devices and generated by the Internet of Things that needs to be stored, according to IBM.

What will businesses be able to do with PCM? IBM thinks there will be stand-alone PCM as well as hybrid applications, which combine PCM and flash memory, with PCM as an extremely fast cache.

A smartphone operating system could be stored in PCM, for example, which could let the phone launch in a few seconds. That could make users more productive as their phones become more responsive.

Meanwhile, IBM notes that entire databases could be stored in PCM, which will enable much faster query processing for time-critical online applications, such as financial transactions.

Additionally, IBM thinks businesses that take advantage of cloud-based machine learning algorithms that use large data sets will also see speed and performance boosts. PCM could help power the data centers of the future.

By: DocMemory
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