Information technology abroad: a record speed of PCME recording achieved

Researchers from the University of Cambridge (the United Kingdom) have managed to improve the PCME features.

The PCME is considered to be a potential alternative to the widespread flash drives. The principle of PCM chips is based on the ability of the carrier material (chalcogenide) to exist in two stable phase states. In one of these phases the matter is a non-conductive amorphous material, and in the other it is a crystalline conductor. The change of phase state is accompanied by switching between the logical zero and the figure one.

British scientists have been experimenting with a material based on germanium, tellurium and antimony (Ge2Sb2Te5). Owing to the pre-organization of atoms with an electric field (0.3 V) it was managed to reduce the crystallization time to 500 picoseconds. It is approximately 10 times less than previously achieved results.

Experiments have shown that the substance is stable after 10 thousand re-record cycles.

Let’s remind that American researchers have recently developed a new scheme for encoding data in the PCM memory microchips, which allows reducing the energy consumption in the recording mode by more than 30%.