16th June 2008, 9:47 AM   by Eric M. Zeman

Researchers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and the University of Tokyo in Japan have created new Flash memory technology that would allow Flash memory chips to have a lifetime that would span hundreds of years. Current Flash chips have a life expectancy of about 10 years, depending on how much they are written to. More reading/writing can cause the cells within Flash memory chips to expire sooner, rendering the chip useless after less than 10 years of life. The new ferroelectric Nand Flash memory cell developed by the Japanese scientists can be written to 100 million times, scaled down to 10 nanometers, and uses only 6 volts of electricity, less than one-third of today's chips' 20-volt draw. MicroSD cards, which are widely used in cell phones to expand file storage, rely on Flash memory chips.

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