Memory research can lead to 128GB storage on mobile devices and bendable RAM in the near future

Intel and Micron made a multicell 128GB NAND flash memory chip of the type that goes as internal memory in your smartphone and tablet or into microSD memory cards. This is achieved by stacking eight 16GB memory chips densely, and the 128GB memory module will be available in January, with mass production slated for the summer of 2012, meaning we can see mobile devices with this insane storage amount at some point after that.

We didn't have doubts that someone will manage to come up with 128GB chip, but another memory research development attracted our attention. A group of researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have come up with flexible RAM. Yes, the type that is in mobile devices, and it bends.

The achievement is "non-volatile resistive random access memory (RRAM) where a memory cell can be randomly accessed, written, and erased on a plastic substrate". We admit that they got us at plastic substrate, since this is how flexible OLED displays are built, and the use of thin plastic will allow the operating memory to bend and wrap together with the circuitry it is on. So now we have the flexible displays, circuits, batteries and RAM memory. Only a few more of the rigid components in our smartphones need to sign up for yoga classes and the bendable Galaxy Skin might become a reality.

source: GigaOM & Tomshardware