Memory, it must be conceded, is rarely an enthralling topic. RAM is necessary, some of it is slightly faster, some of it is slightly cheaper, you pay your money you take your choice. And then Intel comes along and announces that it has joined together with a company called STMicroelectronics to start shipping samples of phase-change memory (PCM), setting the hearts of geeks everywhere all a flutter in the process.
For those not familiar with the technology, PCM is intended as a replacement for both current RAM and SSD; incorporating the advantages of both. The specifics of PCM are as complex as they are interesting, so peruse them at you leisure, but for most of us it should be enough to know that the chips operate at similar speeds to RAM but are non-volatile so that they retain data stored on them without being powered.
