Intel, Numonyx create breakthrough in phase-change memory

Intel Corp. and Numonyx B.V. announced a breakthrough in the development of phase-change memory today that has the potential to allow developers to stack multiple layers of chips atop each other, thereby greatly increasing the density of the nonvolatile memory medium. Greg Atwood, a senior technology fellow at Numonyx, said the breakthrough in stackable PCM, which is being called PCM-stackable (PCMS), has the potential to create products that can replace DRAM, NOR and NAND flash memory because it will have better bandwidth, greater density and a cost per gigabyte of capacity comparable with today's solid state disk (SSD) drive products. "We believe it enables the possibility of combining the functionality and performance of phase-change memory with more NAND-like cost structure," Atwood said. "And, it's of particular interest given the challenges the existing non-volatile memory technologies are facing over the next decade as well as the continued expansion of [PCM] usage." The two companies have been working on development of PCM products since 2000, and a stackable PCM product since 2002. Al Fazio, an Intel fellow and director of memory technology development, said it's not unusual for a new memory type to take as many as 10 years to develop. Calling the discovery a "milestone" in phase-change memory (PCM) development, the researchers said they have so far only been able to build a single-layer, 64Mbit chip with the potential to be stacked with other 64Mbit chips. Atwood said that because the stacking breakthrough builds on top of PCM, a technology already in production, "it's a leading candidate amongst the various stackable memory concepts, most of which have no basis in a proven technology." Other non-volatile memories in development include graphite memory , and race track memory . Atwood added that Intel and Numonyx have no current time line for bringing PCMS products to market.

Current NAND flash memory lithography technology resides at the 32-nanometer level. Phase-change memory is made up of a glass-like material called chalcogenide that can be can be switched between a crystalline and random state using very low-voltage electricity. Future roadmaps scale NAND flash to 20 nanometers, but physical limitations present a barrier to creating anything more dense than that. The structure of a typical non-volatile memory cell includes a storage element combined with a selector element. PCM, however, currently has the ability to scale to 5 nanometers in size, and the potential of even greater densities, Fazio said.

The function of the storage element is nonvolatile storage of data and the purpose of the selector element is to connect storage elements into a cross-point array of cells. Unlike NAND flash memory, which requires a entire block of memory cells to be rewritten each time new data is stored on a device like a SSD drive, PCM allows for single bits to be changed, greatly increasing the efficiency and performance of a device. "It has features of a low-latency memory and high bandwidth so we can combine many of the good attributes ... of NAND flash, DRAM and NOR flash," Fazio said. The connection allows for the selection of a single storage element inside of a large array of cells - a billion or more. The breakthrough in stacking PCMS came with the use of a thin film selector substance that is in the same class of materials as chalcogenide and is built above the silicon substrate. It has a low current in the off state and a high current in the on state," Atwood said. "Combining the OTS with the thin film storage material, a similar material used in phase-change memories today, enables a cell that can be stacked multiple layers high." Additionally, since the silicon substrate that isn't being used as a selector, as it is in today's PCM product, can now be used for building the support circuitry used that's required to decode, read and write to the cells. "So the combination of these two advantages results in a much smaller die size that's a lower potential cost structure for the memory," Atwood said. The companies are calling the thin film selector an Ovonic Threshold Switch (OTS), which acts like a resister between the stacked layers of PCM chips. "This switch demonstrates a diode-like behavior.

On Dec. 9, the two companies plan to present a paper on their discovery at the 2009 International Electron Devices Meeting, titled "A Stackable Cross Point Phase Change Memory."

Study: MySQL use to drop under Oracle ownership

Usage of the open-source MySQL database is set to decline if Oracle succeeds in buying the software's owner, Sun Microsystems, according to new data released by analyst firm The 451 Group on Friday. While 82.1 percent of respondents use MySQL today, that figure will drop to 72.3 percent by 2014, the study found. The firm polled 347 open-source software users. Fifteen percent said that if Oracle buys Sun, they would be less inclined to use MySQL. Only 6.3 percent indicated they would be more likely to use the database under Oracle's stewardship.

Officials there have expressed particular concern over the fate of MySQL under Oracle's ownership. Oracle announced plans to buy Sun in April, but the deal has been held up while European authorities conduct an antitrust review. But some observers have argued that MySQL and Oracle's own database aren't direct competitors, meaning Oracle would have little reason to stifle it. PostgreSQL usage will get a bump as well, growing from 27.1 percent of all users to 30.5 percent by 2014. As for MySQL, some respondents want it to be maintained outside of Oracle. 32.6 percent called for it to be given to an independent organization that would further its development. In addition, MySQL's code base would live on through offshoot projects like MariaDB. According to the 451 Group study, MariaDB usage is expected to rise from zero today to 3.7 percent of all users by 2014, according to the study. Still, only 4.3 percent said Oracle should be made to sell the database off to another software company. "We do not believe that Oracle would see any of the alternatives to divesting MySQL as any less of a last resort and we do not expect Oracle to offer any concessions," 451 Group analyst Matthew Aslett said in a statement. "However, we believe that Oracle might be more inclined to open up the development of the MySQL database under its own terms in order to encourage more widespread adoption." Meanwhile, Oracle's bid to buy Sun recently received a potential boost from prominent open-source legal expert Eben Moglen, founder and executive director of the Software Freedom Law Center.

Moglen issued the opinion after a request from Oracle's legal team, according to a statement. Moglen sent a letter to the European Union on Nov. 19, telling regulators the open-source license used by MySQL, General Public License Version 2, provides adequate protection for parties outside Oracle to develop and redistribute MySQL. "Without expressing any opinion on any other aspect of the Commission's ongoing merger investigation, I believe that the issues raised concerning the GPLv2 status of the MySQL codebase do not warrant a conclusion that this transaction threatens significant anti-competitive consequences," he wrote in part.

Bookmarks for iPhone

Question: When are 2.6 million bookmarked Web sites not enough? It's a great big Web out there-worldwide, they say. Answer: When you can't find the site you're looking for, of course.

When everybody has a niche interest, why, even a collective brain sometimes falls just short of omniscient. The Open Directory Project, if you are unfamiliar, claims the title of the largest, most comprehensive, human-edited directory of the World Wide Web. And so, odds are, the 2.6 million Web sites listed by the Open Directory Project won't be enough for everyone. It's Wiki-like, curated by a globe-spanning community of volunteers. Lukas Renggli'sBookmarks for the iPhone and iPod touch aims to put the Open Directory Project in the palm of your hand. And it's mighty big, with close to 3 million sites catalogued under 410,000 categories, give or take.

The app is more flawed than the Open Directory Project itself. You can browse thousands upon thousands of categories at your leisure or use the app's integrated search engine to look for specific pages or topics. Bookmarks features a spare and unlovely but perfectly straightforward user interface. You can view any site through the app's internal browser, or launch the page in Safari where you can, of course, save the page to your own list of bookmarks. And the app lets you separate your favorites-or, rather, your favorites among that narrow and limited group of 2.6 million sites.

You can also e-mail any URL or copy the address to your device's clipboard. Naturally, the app requires a Wi-Fi, 3G, or EDGE connection to function. I was surprised to discover in the virtual infinity of the Open Directory Project, the Infinite stopped at the letter H. Turns out, the limits of the Infinite appears to constrain only the Bookmarks application. An app such as Bookmarks is not so much a Web browsing utility, as it is a dare to those of us whose favorite pastimes include finding omissions and poking holes. A search at www.dmoz.org returned 305 sites beginning with the word "Infinite," compared with just 50 in a search through the app.

Bookmarks suffers from a dearth of options-and not just the number of sites that a search returns. If it looks like a bug and acts like a bug, it's usually a bug. The watchword for anyone developing an iPhone application such as this one should be "customizable." That isn't the prettiest word in the English language, but as a technical matter, users should be free to add and subtract content as they see fit. But why make that kind of commitment? Sure, you could join the cadre of Open Directory Project editors and fill in the holes you discover. The Bookmarks app could simply include a feature that lets you add your own bookmarks to your own list of favorites.

Feel free to e-mail him.] Honestly, how difficult would that be? [Ben Boychuk is a columnist and freelance writer in Rialto, Calif.

FCC chairman calls for formal net neutrality rules

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will move to create formal net neutrality rules prohibiting Internet providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web content and applications, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Monday. It is vital that we safeguard the free and open Internet." The notice of proposed rulemaking will look not only into net neutrality rules on traditional wired broadband networks, but also explore whether to impose new rules on broadband networks offered by mobile phone carriers, the FCC said. Genachowski announced a notice of proposed rulemaking, a process to formalize a set of broadband policy principles that the FCC has embraced since August 2005. In addition to the four policy principles, Genachowski called for two additional principles to be included in a formal set of net neutrality rules. "The Internet is an extraordinary platform for innovation, job creation, investment, and opportunity," Genachowski said in a speech before the Brookings Institution. "It has unleashed the potential of entrepreneurs and enabled the launch and growth of small businesses across America. Genachowski said he wants all six principles to apply to all platforms that access the Internet.

The FCC has enforced the existing broadband policy principles on a case-by-case basis, but it has never made formal net neutrality rules. Mobile broadband services offered by carriers such as Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile have not been subject to the FCC's net neutrality principles. Broadband provider Comcast filed a lawsuit challenging the FCC's authority to enforce the principles after the agency ruled last August that Comcast had to stop slowing peer-to-peer traffic in the name of network management. Comcast argued that the FCC needs to create a rule or get authority from the U.S. Congress to enforce net neutrality. The Comcast lawsuit was filed late last year, and a ruling is pending. In addition to Genachowski's new rulemaking, a bill pending in the U.S. Congress would give the FCC that authority.

But Genachowski said there have been examples in recent years of broadband providers blocking or slowing applications, including peer-to-peer software and VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service. Several broadband providers have opposed formal net neutrality rules, saying they could hamper provider efforts to roll out new services and manage their networks, and to protect against attacks and bandwidth hogs. There has been one example of a broadband provider blocking political content, he noted. "Notwithstanding its unparalleled record of success, today the free and open Internet faces emerging and substantial challenges," he said. "The rise of serious challenges to the free and open Internet puts us at a crossroads. Or we could take steps to preserve Internet openness, helping ensure a future of opportunity, innovation, and a vibrant marketplace of ideas." A Comcast spokeswoman said the company would comment soon. We could see the Internet's doors shut to entrepreneurs, the spirit of innovation stifled, a full and free flow of information compromised. Representatives of AT&T, Verizon Wireless and CTIA, a trade group representing mobile carriers, weren't immediately available for comment.

In addition, Genachowski proposed two new principles. There are four existing broadband principles that would be formalized: - Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice. - Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement. - Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network. - Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers. The first would prevent Internet access providers from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications, while allowing for reasonable network management. Genachowski will seek to launch a notice of proposed rulemaking during the FCC's October meeting. The second principle would ensure that Internet access providers are transparent about the network management practices they implement. The notice will ask the public and interested companies for feedback on the proposed rules and their application, such as how to determine whether network management practices are reasonable, what information broadband providers should disclose about their network management practices and how the rules apply to differing platforms, including mobile Internet access services, the FCC said.

Avaya's Nortel buy might not power it over Cisco

Even after it buys Nortel, Avaya won't dominate Cisco in the battle for business-communications customers, according to a new study. The rise and fall of Nortel   The numbers released Monday put Cisco ahead with 28.7% of sales, followed by Avaya with 18.4% and then Nortel with 9.9% - a combined total of 28.3%. The numbers are for North American sales. IntelliCom Analytics says that in the third quarter of this year, Cisco scored No. 1 in sales of business communications gear, outstripping number two Avaya and number three Nortel's revenues combined.

Global numbers are due out in a week or so. At the VoiceCon conference this fall, analyst Alan Sulkin, president of TEQConsult Group said, "They're going to be a powerhouse. Analysts have said that one key reason for Avaya buying Nortel is that the deal would give the combined entity a dramatic lead in the race for business customers. The last time somebody had a marketshare like this was AT&T in 1900." At the same show, analyst Zeus Kerravala of the Yankee Group, quoted the combined Avaya/Nortel as holding 42% share of the North American market. While Avaya clearly improves its position either way, how much is open to interpretation, says Frank Stinson, partner and senior analyst with IntelliCom, who wrote "Intellicom Market Performance Dashboard 3rd Quarter 2009." Both measurements are muddy because VoIP PBXs and peripheral systems aren't as cleanly measurable as were traditional PBXs and the phones that connected to them, he says.

The difference between the numbers discussed at VoiceCon and those from IntelliCom is that the stats quoted at VoiceCon referred to numbers of phone line equivalents each vendor shipped vs. the total sales reaped for the products as measured by Intellicom. VoIP servers can be sold as software with hardware from a separate vendor a range of peripheral hardware and software. A long-term communications vendor such as Avaya might encourage its customers to upgrade to a hybrid of traditional TDM gear with VoIP products whereas Cisco, which never sold TDM gear, would encourage its customers to rip and replace, he says. So a customer could buy a VoIP server but keep its traditional PBX in service via a gateway and make continued use of the old handsets, he says. That can also skew numbers, he says. "It's not apples to apples," Stinson says. "I think what the numbers show is it gives Avaya a good shot at giving Cisco a run for its money." As for IntelliCom's new study, it doesn't mark the first time that Cisco's No.1 ranked revenues outstripped the combined total for Avaya and Nortel. Regardless, Cisco has held the No.1 spot consistently since the second quarter of 2007, he says.

It achieved that mark in the third and fourth quarters of last year as well, Stinson says. Regardless of the horse race for the first-place ranking, there is a battle going on for Nortel customers, he says. Its competitors, including Cisco, want to use the uncertainty caused by Nortel's bankruptcy as leverage to grab away as many of those customers as they can. Avaya clearly wants to capture as many as it can through the purchase of Nortel. Stinson says that Nortel customers ought to write down their immediate communications needs and their likely communications needs in the future.

At that time, they should see how well needs match up with Avaya plans and decide whether to stick with Nortel or to look elsewhere, he says. It should compare those needs with the road map that Avaya says it will issue within 30 days after its purchase of Nortel is complete. They should look at specifics of the road map such as what Nortel devices Avaya will continue to support, which ones it won't and what its migration path is for replacing the products it cancels, he says.