Intel OUM: An Outsider For The Mass Market

Intel has been discussing its Ovonic Unified Memory technology (OUM) for a good four years, and it is slowly but surely presenting itself as a possible mass market technology. The way OUM functions bears a strong similarity to the write, delete and read process with CD-RWs and DVD-RWs. Where in CDs/DVDs a laser serves the purpose of heating and changing the state of materials called chalcogenides, in OUM this is done using an electric current. With an appropriate power supply, the chalcogenides almost shift back and forth between crystalline and amorphous states. The two states are thus suited to the storage of data.

Unlike MRAM, however, the development of OUM is still in its infancy. Although test chips have been produced, they served more to confirm the idea than to demonstrate the possibilities of the technology.

Where MRAM's main feature is its high speed, OUM targets the mass market and when launched could compete with Flash. OUM offers a significantly higher number of maximum write cycles than Flash (ten trillion). With a data access time of 100 to 200 nanoseconds, it also beats the latter in terms of speed. However, OUM has nothing on MRAM, with its data access times of ten to fifteen nanoseconds.

Stefan Lai thinks that OUM can go up against MRAM mainly on the basis of its low cost. "MRAM currently costs a pretty penny. Right now we think that OUM can be produced at a price comparable to a single-bit Flash memory." Lai says continued development could allow costs to reach the factor of double-bit Flash, which Intel plans to offer in the form of Strata-Flash, and which Spansion already is offering. There is no physical proof of this, he says, since currently OUM only exists as a computer simulation. According to Lai, however, the technology has an "impressive potential for scaling".

He did not give information about possibly manufacturing a prototype or a sample. When the bugs have been removed from the manufacturing process of the 4 Mbit chip, however, a "significant" increase in the storage capacity is planned. Lai: "There is already a plan for a product." But he did not want to give away any details, except to say that due to the high costs, he considered MRAM more of a niche product while OUM could attack in the mass market dominated today by Flash.