Combined Memory & Processor To Make Future Computers Blazing Fast

In general terms a RAM is the computer's memory while the processor is its think tank. The two being separate makes it slower for them to interchange data and information.

A team of scientists has developed processors out of memory chips to enhance computing tasks thus fastening the processing of data in its very place of storage.

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University(NTU) Singapore and Germany's RWTH Aachen University and Forschungszentrum Juelich, one of Europe's biggest interdisciplinary research center joined forces to incorporate this revolutionary idea.

Going by NTU's News release the processors are built using state of the art memory chips called Redox based resistive switching random access memory(ReRAM). Renowned chipmakers like San Disk and Panasonic have been developing this type of chips and they will be available in the market very soon.

This discovery was published in "Scientific Nature"; A peer reviewed journal under the Nature Publishing Group. By making the memory chip perform computing tasks it is possible to eliminate the extra space for processor and can lead to a genre of thinner, smaller and lighter electronic devices claims the report.

In demonstration of its prototype, NTU assistant professor Anupam Chattopadhyay and collaborator Professor Rainer Waser revealed that ReRAM processes data in three stages known as Ternary computing rather than the conventional processors that does the same in two stages. Also as ReRAM uses different electrical resistance to store information it could store the data in even higher number of states thus boosting computing tasks beyond the current limitations.

According to Professor Chattopadhyay usage of ReRAM for computing is going to be more cost-effective than other existing computing technologies subject to its market availability.

In a conversation with PhysOrg, Professor Waser from RWTH Aachen University said, "ReRAM is a versatile non-volatile memory concept. These devices are energy-efficient, fast, and they can be scaled to very small dimensions. Using them not only for data storage but also for computation could open a completely new route towards an effective use of energy in the information technology."

The groundbreaking ReRAM with all its outstanding properties such as long-term storage capacity, low usage of energy and a nanoscale level production has been a real revelation and is drawing attention from many semiconductor companies to invest in the research of this futuristic technology.

Moving ahead with the development of this revolutionary ReRAM, researchers are looking to process more stages than its current capacity thus leading to huge improvements in computing speeds alongside testing its performance in real scenarios of computing.