memory

There's a saying that goes "if you've got it, flaunt it." Of course, that doesn't apply to all cases, thankfully. That apparently is also true for the OnePlus 3, the latest "flagship killer" to come out of the bold Chinese startup because despite it's hardware capabilities, particularly the RAM, it was revealed to perform below expectations. Taking to his Twitter account, co-founder Carl Pei explained that the decision to not fully exploit that much RAM all boils down to offering a better user experience, mostly by making sure the smartphone won't consume battery like crazy.

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In an ideal world, computers would only have one type of data storage, but thanks to the laws of physics and businesses, we have two main types (three if you count CPU L caches). There's DRAM or RAM, which is fast, expensive, and doesn't retain its data without power. And then there's regular storage, today represented by NAND flash, which has more capacity, retains its data longer, but is slower in comparison. Combining all those benefits, without the drawbacks, has been one of the holy grails of computing. And IBM might have found its version of the answer in its 3-bit phase-change memory.

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Samsung's dynamic RAM, or DRAM, technology has definitely come a long way. Back in 2010 is tarted mass producing 40 nanometer DDR3 chips. In 2014, it jumped to the new 20 nanometer process for DDR3 DRAM. Now, two years later, it halved that figure again by introducing an industry first. The Korean OEM has announced that start of mass production of what it bills as the world's first DDR4 DRAM chip that uses the latest and smallest 10 nanometer semiconductor fabrication process, paving the way for faster, more efficient memory to power the next generation of computers, both personal and enterprise.

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Many people are wont to say how smartphones these days are nearly as powerful as our computers. Well, Samsung has just added another notch to that checklist. It has just announced that it started the mass production of its newest, fastest, and biggest UFS 2.0 embedded memory, able to reach 256 GB in capacity. The ridiculously biggest size we're seeing on a single chip for a smartphone, the storage also boasts of sequential reading and writing speeds that Samsung claims is twice, even thrice, faster than a SATA-based SSD for PCs.

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Get ready for the next wave of graphics, machine learning, and parallel computing performance, as Samsung kicks off production of HBM2 DRAM. The new chips, each packing 4GB, use the second-generation High Bandwidth Memory interface and can run as much as seven times the speed of current DRAM.

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There were a few disappointed, if not puzzled, people when Apple revealed it hadn't killed off the 16 GB iPhone. While it was indeed cheaper than the other models, that much storage in this day and age is almost negligible. That practically forces many to opt for at least the 32 GB configuration, though the ideal setup is really the pricey 128 GB. Lucky for those in China, there are a few enterprising individuals willing to upgrade that lowly iPhone 6 16 GB memory to 128 GB for as low as $92.

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Apple is traditionally mum on some details of its devices' hardware, preferring to talk about how "B is X times faster than A" than raw numbers. It's partly a smart marketing move, using more general but easily understood comparisons than cold, impersonal numbers. But it also relieves Apple from having to concede, much less reveal, how it has sometimes been skimping on some hardware, most notoriously the RAM in even the most recent iPhones. Fortunately, thanks to developer Hamza Sood, there is great news for fans.

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Samsung has been steadily improving its semiconductor products, from processors to NAND storage, and now to volatile memory, to help offset its disappointing smartphone sales. While the numbers and names might be a bit confusing thanks to how they're marketed, this 12 Gigabit, not Gigabyte, LPDDR4 RAM is still a notable achievement. By squeezing in more memory in a single chip made with the same 20 nm process, Samsung is practically paving the way for smartphones and tablets to soon have as much as 6 GB of RAM inside.

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When id Software's RAGE video game started flaunting "4K textures" around, there was much debate on the practicality of that amount of data versus what our eyes can distinguish and what our beefiest PCs can handle. And now Intel and Micron, two of the biggest names in the semiconductor industry, wants us thinking about 8K games already? That said, it isn't about the absurdity of the idea but about how its new 3D XPoint memory technology can make it possible, beating the hell out of the popular and steadfast NAND flash storage we have today.

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The advent of 64-bit processors on mobile was seen to herald support for more RAM inside smartphones and tablets. But to this day, you can probably count on the fingers of one hand the devices that come with even 4 GB of memory. The ASUS ZenFone 2 is one of those, bearing 4 GB of RAM inside. But what does that exactly mean in practice? YouTube user L BS provides a video demonstrating just that, swiftly and smoothly multi-tasking between one of the most resource intensive type of mobile apps: games.

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SSD memory is fast. Really fast. It’s also much more stable than spinning drives are, making it pretty desirable for those who want reliable performance from their external drive or on-board memory (and who doesn’t?!). The limited offerings for SSD haven’t yet brought it to the mainstream bulk storage front, but a new technology just might do that. Pioneered by Toshiba and Intel, 3D NAND stacks SSD memory chips to allow for more memory in tighter spots? Early results have given us a 10TB SSD.

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As repeatedly mentioned before, with the push for higher displays and CPUs on smartphones slowing down just a wee bit, attention is now being given to the last part of the system to catch up: storage. We are entering a period of not just faster flash memory for mobile devices but also growing densities. Samsung is now trying to pull up even those on lower rungs of the device tier by bringing out the highest density 128 GB eMMC 5.0 storage squarely marketed for mid-range devices.

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