100 times lower consumption, but with a lot of latency
The power consumption that UK III-V memory requires to write the data is approximately 10 raised to -17 joules, and that with a memory cell built with a 20 nm lithography, so it is estimated that using more advanced processes consumption will be even lower.
Now comes the bad part of this, and that is to make a memory cell go from the state off to on (to write a bit of data) has a latency of approximately 5 nm, and its latency to return to its normal state is 3 nm. This means that this type of memory is much slower than DRAM in terms of access times (because in terms of speed it's as fast as DRAM).
Of course, the UK III-V memory is still in development and in fact for now it consists only of transistors. Researchers have said that if it reaches the production phase, the cells they will carry a controller that will make these latencies much smaller and that its performance can be compared to that of the traditional RAM we use today.
The UK III-V memory, is it the future?
Having a non-volatile memory as fast as DRAM is certainly very interesting, because it would allow us, for example, to have PCs that can keep data stored in RAM even when we turn them off and they could, in fact, start again in record time when we turn them on again. To this we must add that the need for sleep states could be eliminated, and that the system could turn off modules of this RAM to save energy when they are not being used and turn them on again when needed.
The biggest problem at the moment is that the technology under the hood of memory UK III-V is still at a very early stage of development. At the moment it only consists of transistors manufactured with a 20 nm process, and we would have to see how they work when the process is smaller, and when a controller is incorporated into the equation to see if such high latencies really improve.
Technology, in any case, is promising and there is no doubt that they will continue to develop it to try to have a real application in our daily life systems. The possible applications you have are interesting – we have already listed them, and surely have many more – and yes it is something that could end up being the future of PCs.
