Hewlett-Packard, SanDisk Join Forces on New-Breed Memory Chips
October 08 2015 - 9:10AM
Dow Jones News
Hewlett-Packard Co. and SanDisk Corp. are collaborating on a new
breed of memory chips, the latest entry in a widening race to
improve a basic building block of computers and other devices.
The companies, which are announcing the partnership Thursday,
predicted that their forthcoming chips will be 1,000 times faster
than flash memory, which is commonplace in smartphones and rapidly
moving into corporate data centers. The new chips also will be able
to replace the widely used chips known as DRAMs at much lower cost,
the partners said.
H-P, the big computer supplier, and SanDisk, which makes memory
chips, join a gaggle of companies that aim to upend the $78.5
billion market for digital memory with new, higher-performance
technologies.
The goals they described mirror some of those laid out in late
July by chip makers Intel Corp. and Micron Technology Inc., which
announced a new memory technology they call 3D Xpoint.
Computers hold data for short periods in relatively costly
technologies, such as DRAM chips and SRAM circuitry built into
microprocessor chips, that transfer data quickly but lose it when
power is turned off. For longer-term storage, disk drives and flash
memory chips are slower but much less expensive per byte
stored.
Designers and chip companies dream of a single fast, affordable
technology that combines the best of both, boosting computer
performance by eliminating time spent shuttling data between short-
and long-term storage.
"We are trying to collapse all of that and try to dramatically
simplify the world," said Martin Fink, an H-P executive vice
president and chief technology officer.
This so-called universal memory is a pillar of the Palo Alto,
Calif., technology giant's research effort dubbed the Machine, an
improved computer design that is fundamentally different than the
one that has held sway for the past 60 years.
New memory technologies have gained little momentum in the
market, as steady improvements in conventional memory technologies
have beaten them back. But the conventional way to boost the
capacity of flash memory and DRAMs—shrinking the size of tiny
transistors that store data—lately has delivered diminishing
returns.
The two partners said their collaboration would employ two
technologies they have been researching separately: H-P's
memristors and SanDisk's resistive random access memory, or RRAM.
Both approaches exploit materials that change their electrical
resistance in the presence of electric current.
H-P and SanDisk aren't the only ones following this path.
Startup Crossbar Inc., for example, has also been developing RRAM.
Intel and Micron, which have held back some details of their new
technology, have described it in terms similar to what the other
companies have disclosed.
The latest partnership "is in the same league as what Micron and
Intel have been talking about," said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst
with Moor Insights & Strategy.
H-P engineers will help develop the new technology, and SanDisk,
which operates factories in a venture with Japan's Toshiba Corp.,
will manufacture the jointly designed chips.
Besides memory chips, the companies plan to collaborate on
systems that make use of the technology.
"This is a long-term partnership," said Siva Sivaram, an
executive vice president at SanDisk, which is based in Milpitas,
Calif.
Beyond the new technologies, many companies working on universal
memory are promoting a new business model. Device makers are
accustomed to being able to buy DRAMs and flash memory chips from
multiple suppliers that compete largely on price. However, H-P and
SanDisk say they don't intend to license their technology for
others to sell. Intel and Micron announced the same strategy.
Mr. Fink said such chips no longer would be price-driven
commodities. "We are moving to a world that is value-based," he
said.
Mr. Fink said some partnership's technology may reach the market
between 2018 and 2020, but the companies didn't disclose a precise
timetable.
Write to Don Clark at don.clark@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 08, 2015 08:55 ET (12:55 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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