Intel Labs and ITRI Announce Fast Memory Array
Intel is starting a memory research project with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) of Taiwan to address the performance gap and to reduce the power consumption of memory.
Intel announced the development of a mysterious, super-fast memory array the company expects to deploy in dense environments such as ultrabooks, tablets, smartphones and cloud computing data centers that presumably leverage micro server technologies.
The technology without a name was developed by Intel in a joint-effort with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Taiwan. The project is expected to be completed within five years and funding of $5 million.
According to media reports, the memory is energy-efficient to achieve longer battery life and faster integration of mobile data, while enhancing performance with improved graphics and overall better user experience on mobile devices.
Intel CTO Justin Rattner said that testing of the devices will begin in 2013 and cover devices ranging from smartphones to supercomputers.
I would believe a better decision would be to raise the funding to at least $10 million. More efficient RAM in the mobile sector could really take off for them, as long as it is done correctly.
Or repeats the Rambus fiasco...
Heck, ram is relatively cheap and easy to make. Just throw 4GB on the chip and call it a day. 5 years from now we are talking about sub 10nm die process, so I am sure that space would not be much of an issue.
If Intel gets into the memory business it is NOT a win for everybody. It means major job cuts for every memory manufacturer out there. Makes faster systems that can 'race to sleep' more efficiently, so it would be a potential win for consumers, but definitely not a win for everyone.
Level 4 cache maybe? That runs at level 1 cache speed even?
Because grinding AMD, ARM, and Nividia into submission (or bankruptcy) is more fun?