China Develops Flash Memory 10,000x Faster With 400-Picosecond Speed (interestingengineering.com)
- Reference: 0177062915
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/04/18/2255249/china-develops-flash-memory-10000x-faster-with-400-picosecond-speed
- Source link: https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/china-worlds-fastest-flash-memory-device
> A research team at Fudan University in Shanghai, China has built the fastest semiconductor storage device ever reported, a nonvolatile flash memory dubbed "PoX" that [2]programs a single bit in 400 picoseconds (0.0000000004 s) -- roughly 25 billion operations per second. Conventional static and dynamic RAM (SRAM, DRAM) write data in 1-10 nanoseconds but lose everything when power is cut while current flash chips typically need micro to milliseconds per write -- far too slow for modern AI accelerators that shunt terabytes of parameters in real time.
>
> The Fudan group, led by Prof. Zhou Peng at the State Key Laboratory of Integrated Chips and Systems, re-engineered flash physics by replacing silicon channels with two dimensional Dirac graphene and exploiting its ballistic charge transport. Combining ultralow energy with picosecond write speeds could eliminate separate highspeed SRAM caches and remove the longstanding memory bottleneck in AI inference and training hardware, where data shuttling, not arithmetic, now dominates power budgets. The team [which is now scaling the cell architecture and pursuing arraylevel demonstrations] did not disclose endurance figures or fabrication yield, but the graphene channel suggests compatibility with existing 2Dmaterial processes that global fabs are already exploring.
The result is [3]published in the journal Nature .
[1] https://slashdot.org/~hackingbear
[2] https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/china-worlds-fastest-flash-memory-device
[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08839-w?error=cookies_not_supported&code=567fe440-d8e2-43be-ba5b-e0bf8ff9a7d7
As one circuit (Score:2)
in a lab, using exotic materials you'd never want to manufacture with. Just another headline that hopes you conflate the idea of anything being done in a lab with a market ready product coming soon to a package near you; when of course 99% of lab discoveries never make it to product explicitly.
Re: (Score:2)
Congrats, you just described every advancement in the history of electronics.
Need to know more. (Score:1)
If the read time is as fast as write, if the cost is right, if the data retention period without power is long enough, etc, this could replace more than RAM. How about SSDs?
Re: (Score:2)
It sure seems like it could replace both - it's flash/non-volatile, so survives removal of power. Sounds awesome... if it ever actually becomes a product we can buy. Maybe Trump's idiotic trade war will be over by then.
The marketing idea is that AI is a thing (Score:2)
Companies have been throwing massive amounts of cash into the pathetic illusion of AI, so maybe they'll be interested in funding something useful that pretends to be for AI. The concept is interesting. Whether it's practical is another matter.
The west needs to get off its backside (Score:3)
China seems to be advancing extremely fast technology wise with breaththroughs that frankly should have come from the west with our supposed "advantage". I suspect in 10 years time it won't be china trying to source AI GPUs and other high tech from us, it'll be us trying to get at theirs as they progress from a manufacturing economy to an innovation one, while in the meantime western tech companies such as Nvidia collapse in value or go bust altogether as the rest of the world buy chinese as they're already starting to do with chinese cars.
Re:The west needs to get off its backside (Score:4, Insightful)
China has spent decades investing in education, encouraging people to become the best they possibly can be. The Chinese have travelled the world to get the best education from the top universities and made good use of that knowledge. The west, particularly the USA, has spent decades dismantling its education, seeing it as an expense to cut, and is now reaping the benefits.
The problem is complacency, western countries looking at themselves, saying aren’t we good, we have universal education for all our citizens, we are so much better than all these poor countries. Imagining that the job is done and this competitive edge would remain forever. Meanwhile countries like China, have been determined to make their mark in the world, instead of saying we are good enough, they have said we can do better.
We in the west might not agree with some of their authoritarian methods, but they have built something that now threatens the dominance of the USA. Incredibly, countries are now looking at China as being a more reliable trade partner than the USA. The balance of power is shifting rapidly in the world today.
Re: (Score:2)
It's more ideological than complacency, and the fact that we built up a lot of social debt that now needs paying off.
For example, in the US there is a feeling that education should be paid for by the person being educated, as they reap the benefits. The wider benefits to society are ignored. It's also far too socialist to "pay for other people's education".
In the UK it was austerity and a largely invented need for most people to suffer cuts and rising costs to "balance the books". Some of it was offset by f
Re: (Score:2)
That is a typical cycle in human history: Any country that things they are "great" is decidedly not so anymore (if it ever was) after a few decades.
Re:The west needs to get off its backside (Score:5, Interesting)
China has historically accounted for roughly 30% of the GDP of the world.
If not for the two historical accidents, the opium crisis and the Communist rule, it would have remained the largest economic power. It is not "advancing extremely fast", it is just recovering to its proper position, based on its size. The only factor that can realistically slow down China or prevent it from moving ahead of everyone else economically is the Xi regime, just like the emperors and the Communists did before.
Also, don't forget there is no "West" anymore. The USA, lead by its best and brightest since January this year, decided that a united "West" is a fantasy and that the largest "western" partners - the EU and Canada - are now the enemy. The leadership of this new USA also seems to believe that by occupying Canada and Greenland, building a wall and forgetting about the rest of the world, it can successfully isolate itself from a world of Chinese dominance and survive.
So calls to the "west" appear to be, by and large, pointless.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, we'll probably see more and more of this since Trumpelon is cutting/eliminating science and education. I wonder if we'll be the ones stealing IP and manufacturing copies of Chinese tech here... in AI/robotic driven factories since the American labor costs too much. Or maybe not, after the next great depression induced by Trump's policies, we'll be glad to work at $5/hr.
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like the only thing holding them back is lack of acces to the latest ASML products. Well, if Trump fucks around some more, the US could lose that access as well and China may get it back.
400 ps? (Score:2)
Slow as molasses, here's 16 ps (with scaling to 0.5).
[1]https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.10... [acs.org]
[1] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c01116
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you. There's been research into replacements for things like conventional DRAM and NAND for years. Let's not forget that when hearing about this wondrous achievement from a research group in China.
Propaganda (Score:1)
"Interesting Engineering" has be used as a Propaganda site for the China. Constantly pushing their narratives. Ignore it.
pox (Score:3)
first covid, now pox...
Re: (Score:2)
Just wait until President Musk acquires a company that makes military equipment...