News Briefs

Researchers are using alloys in a long-studied but not previously commercialized technique that promises to make computer memory even smaller and more energy efficient. This is part of the industry´s ongoing attempt to avoid silicon´s limitations and devise faster chips, including those used for memory, that use less space and power. Both Intel and Philips Research are working on phase-change memory, a form of nonvolatile memory which keeps stored data even after power is turned off. Phase-change memory, also called ovonics, records data by changing a medium between two physical states to represent binary data´s ones and zeros.