Cool new memory technology right up my alley

Intel's next-gen memory closer to reality
by Stephen Shankland

Researchers are two steps closer to creating a mass-market version of technology called phase-change memory that could change how computers of the future are put together.
Intel and Numonyx, the chipmaker's joint venture with STMicroelectonics that's focused on flash memory, announced Wednesday they've built a new type of phase-change memory chip they hope will help fulfill the technology's promise for small size and large capacity.
Its 64-megabit capacity isn't momentous on its own--Numonyx announced a 128Mb device in 2006 and Samsung said in September it's producing a 512Mb chip. But what is significant are two major advances in making the decades-old idea practical.
First, the researchers built a grid of wires into the chip so a computer can easily control the writing of a 1 or 0 in each of the 64 million memory cells. Second, they announced their manufacturing process lets them stack several layers atop each other so memory can be packed more densely in a given volume.

This image shows phase-change memory built atop a conventional CMOS microchip. Memory cells can be controlled using rows and columns of wires that lead through the chip.

Storing numbers in a computer hardly is new, so why could phase-change memory, which records ones and zeros by changing the molecular state of a particular type of glass, be a big deal?
In short, it could combine conventional computer memory's high speed with flash memory's low cost, low power demands, and high capacity. Having lots of fast memory on hand could simplify computer hardware and software that today must reckon with a hierarchy of storage technologies that trade off performance for capacity.
Operating systems today must constantly work to keep important information in memory while relegating the rest to "virtual memory" stored on hard drives--or, these days, an intermediate layer in the hierarchy, solid state disks made of flash memory. Deciding what goes where is complicated, and priorities change from one moment to the next.
"At Intel, we see this as an important milestone in enabling a future class of memory where you can combine attributes of memory semantics and storage semantics, potentially collapsing the technologies into one memory type," said Al Fazio, Intel's director of memory technology development, discussing the technology Wednesday. "The research is very promising in delivering that."
For another thing, phase-change memory could get around difficulties of shrinking current memory technologies to ever-smaller sizes. And for another, it could lower the power consumption, reducing waste heat and extending battery life.
A long history
But be sure to temper that promise with a long history.
Phase-change memory is a decades-old idea. Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, of Moore's Law fame, wrote a paper on the idea in 1970. It's made some headway since then: phase-change technology is used to store data on rewritable DVDs and CDs.
Intel and Numonyx aren't alone in trying to commercialize the technology. Start-up Ovonyx also is working on it, as are IBM, Samsung, and Philips Electronics. But as the years of labor show, it's been difficult bringing phase-change memory to market.
Fazio and Greg Atwood, senior technology fellow at Numonyx, took pains to say their companies' work on the technology began in earnest at the beginning of the decade.
"Significant new memory technologies are really quite rare," Atwood said. "There are many hurdles in introduction of new memory. Ten years is not an unreasonable time frame."
Arguably, Atwood said, there only are three forms of memory developed since the 1960s, he said: dynamic random access memory (DRAM) that's the mainstay of computer memory, the more expensive static dynamic random access memory (SRAM) that's often integrated on processors, and electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), of which flash is one variety.
Adding phase-change memory, sometimes called PCM, PRAM, or ovonics, therefore would be quite a departure in the history of computing.
How's it work?
Phase change memory stores 1s and 0s in a tiny patch of glass material that can be changed from one state to another--specifically, so its molecules are arranged either in a crystalline pattern or an amorphous jumble. It's conceptually similar to water being either a liquid or an ice.
In addition, Intel announced "multi-level" phase change memory in 2008 that adds two intermediate states, a move that means a single cell could hold two bits of data instead of one--the binary numbers of 00, 01, 10, or 11. That effectively doubled the 128Mbit capacity of the prototype chip to a 256Mbit chip, Intel said.
The stacking technique could increase memory density further, though there are limits, Atwood said.
"In principle, we can stack as high as we choose. In practice, every layer of memory has an additional cost," he said, requiring more processing and increasing the risks that defects will lower the yield of useful chips produced from a production batch. "There's no reason why we couldn't stack four layers for example, or potentially more."
Though the researchers are excited about stacking, the 64Mbit prototypes uses only a single layer of memory cells. "The first layer is the hardest layer," Fazio said. And today's flash memory is only one layer thick.
Like flash but unlike conventional computer memory, phase-change memory is nonvolatile, which means that once data is written, it stays put even if the power is switched off. That doesn't just preserve data when a device is off; it also means that unlike DRAM, power isn't required to keep the data in memory.
Ever smaller
Intel was cagey about just how closely packed its latest memory cells are. But the company expects to achieve the same density of memory cells as flash memory--then go beyond it eventually.
Flash memory today requires relatively high voltages--about 20 volts--to store its data, Fazio said. But high voltage and small distances are hard to put together, a fact that imposes limits on flash memory.
Today's flash memory features measure about 30 nanometers, or billionths of a meter. Because of the voltage issue and the fact that the difference between a 1 and a 0 is just "a handful of electrons," it's getting harder to shrink flash memory technology.
Phase-change memory, though, can get much smaller. "Research in the industry has shown that to be stable down to 5 nanometers and lower," Fazio said.
The new wiring grid helps keep up with the shrinking trend by providing a way to get at the data even as cells get smaller.
All this is important for the computer industry, which has struggled with the challenges of data storage.
Once upon a time, memory and processors worked at closer speeds, but they've diverged over the years, which means processors often must idle while the memory system fetches data the CPU has requested. System architects have responded by building a hierarchy of storage systems--different levels of SRAM cache memory on the chip or right next to it, DRAM that's one level removed, and hard drives a step beyond that.
Today's flash memory, which is faster than a hard drive and cheaper than conventional memory, is changing that arrangement. It's already revolutionized the portable device market with enough capacity for lots of songs, videos, and photos. Now it's begun arriving in high-end laptops with solid-state drives that offer longer battery life, higher performance, and greater ruggedness. And servers are on the cusp of major changes with the incorporation of flash memory.
But flash memory is sluggish compared to conventional memory. If phase-change memory meets its high-performance promise in coming years, expect more profound changes for computing systems.

Intriguing article on sports betting

Bad NFL teams turn sports books into losers
By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports Oct 27, 2:36 pm EDT

With head shakes and hushed tones, they’re calling Sunday the worst day in memory at Las Vegas sports books.

NFL blowout after blowout caused the house to take a bath up and down the famed strip. Estimates have NFL gamblers across the city walking away with millions in cumulative winnings on Sunday alone.

“It was the worst weekend I’ve ever seen,” said Jay Kornegay, executive director of the sports book at the Las Vegas Hilton and a 22-year veteran of the business. “I’ve heard from across the world and everybody got really beaten up by the NFL.”

This is NFL season where parity has gone to die. The adage “On Any Given Sunday” has become a punch line with each successive 30-point blow out.

The league is full of terrible teams – St. Louis Rams (0-7), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-7), Tennessee Titans (0-6), Kansas City Chiefs (1-6), Cleveland Browns (1-6) and Detroit Lions (1-5) with the two-win Washington Redskins, Seattle Seahawks, Oakland Raiders and Carolina Panthers not too far behind.

The result has been a remarkable string of lopsided games in a sport where close contests have driven interest – and betting action – for decades.

“The NFL is a concern for us because there are so many non-competitive teams,” Kornegay said. “We can’t get the line high enough. History says, don’t make the line too high and overreact. Then all these poor teams don’t cover this weekend.”

No one is going to shed any tears for Vegas. This is one of the great gambling trends of all time, karma for all those bad beats through the years.
More From Dan Wetzel

* Pats' record-setting rout likely no coincidence Oct 19, 2009

For the house, it has been a terrible season punctuated by a calamitous Sunday. The issue isn’t just that some bad teams are getting blown out. It’s that none is stepping up and making a game of it, limiting the casino’s losses.

The individual gamblers are having a field day.

“We’ve had bad teams in the NFL before, but usually one or two step up and cover,” Kornegay said.

He paused and issued a gallows humor laugh.

“I feel like we’re in a knife fight and we’re losing.”

A brief explanation for non-gamblers: In an effort to attract action on an otherwise lopsided game (say, Indianapolis Colts at St. Louis on Sunday), a sports book will offer extra points to the underdog, in this case the winless Rams. Without a spread, everyone would bet the Colts and the house would get massacred.

The Golden Nugget sports book, for instance, opened with St. Louis getting 12.5 points (the half to help with ties). That way, if you bet the Rams and the actual game ended 21-10 Indy, you’d win the bet with a score of 22.5-21 St. Louis.

A betting line is fluid though and will correct itself as money pours in for the favorite or underdog. Despite the Rams getting all those points, at home no less, the money kept going to Indy. The line reacted by moving all the way to 14 points at kickoff.

The goal of a sports book is two fold. One is to have enough big spreads that when a few of the underdogs inevitably cover, the house offsets the losses. The second is to have an equal amount of money on each side of the game to limit exposure.

In this case, the money didn’t even out though. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported that in some sports books, 90 percent of the action was on the Colts. The bettors had good reason: Undefeated Indy won 42-6, covering with ease.

The question for the sports books is how big of a spread can you dare to throw out to the bettors. Traditionally double-digit underdogs are relatively rare. Most NFL games are decided by a touchdown or less and often a field goal or less.

Right now gamblers see as many of 10 clubs that are capable of getting drilled each week. The sports books are having an impossible time finding anyone to bet on a St. Louis or Oakland.

The Rams can be competitive against other lousy clubs. However, in three games against winning teams (Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings and Indy) they’ve lost by an average of 27.7 points. When the Rams host Super Bowl contender New Orleans in a few weeks, who would dare bet on them?

What spread number could possibly make it interesting?

The books have thrown up some massive numbers in college football, where especially in non-conference play the talent differential creates huge blowouts. Currently, national championship contender LSU is a 36-point favorite going into Saturday’s game against lowly Tulane.

You’ll never see that in pro football though. Kornegay said the highest spread he’s ever seen came in 1976, when the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers were 24-point favorites against a Tampa Bay team that would go winless (Pittsburgh covered, winning 42-0).

In 2007, the powerhouse New England Patriots were often 20-plus favorites. That was just one team though. This is a league-wide epidemic not of great teams, but terrible ones.

Especially beneficial to gamblers are parlay bets where they can string together antes on three, four, five or more games to improve their odds. The chances they all come through is small, which is why they’re offered. A five-team parlay will generally net you at least a 20-1 payout.

Last weekend you could’ve teased favorites New England, Indy, Green Bay, the San Diego Chargers and New York Jets and not even worried. The closest game against the spread was the Patriots (minus-15.5 against Tampa Bay) cruising to a 35-7 victory.

As bad as it is for the casinos, it has to be worse with your friendly, neighborhood, illegal bookie. A Las Vegas casinos gambling operation can take sustained hits and survive. A local bookie, even one tied to organized crime, doesn’t have backing of that magnitude.

Geography also can play a huge roll in gambling trends – how many people in Indiana actually bet against the Colts? The limited number of gamblers can make for crushing defeats (or victories).

“I think there are a lot of new post office boxes out there this week,” Kornegay said. “Bookies may have just up and gone. Call them and get, ‘This number is no longer active.’ ”

The sports book executives are getting smacked right now, but even with this unusual season of horrible football teams, confidence remains high. There’s a reason they keep building bigger and bigger hotels in Nevada.

While a lot of people are flush with winnings right now, they rarely walk. In addition, a fresh group of weekend gamblers keep arriving at McCarron International Airport. Nothing stays the same.

“The beauty of sports betting is that people have some kind of insight into the game,” Kornegay said. “Now that everyone is predicting it correctly, we’re going to have a lot of experts out there.

“They’re going to reload.”

The casinos won’t even consider taking a NFL game off the board – as they sometimes do with college mismatches. The spreads will get more and more tantalizing. The house will use its trained professionals to attempt to figure out how to even the money out. And the bad teams can’t keep getting crushed, can they?

“We’ll continue to adjust the lines; we just have to hope some of the poor teams step up and stay within a couple of touchdowns,” Kornegay said.

This sounds like a calm, calculated and historically solid plan. Except, have you watched the Rams and Bucs and Lions and … ?

This doesn't sound good...and I believe its true!

Whodunit? Sneak attack on U.S. dollar
Eamon Javers Eamon Javers

It’s the biggest mystery in global finance right now: Who conducted a sneak attack on the U.S. dollar this week?

It began with a thinly sourced but highly explosive report Monday in a British newspaper: Arab oil sheiks are conspiring with the Russians and Chinese to quit using the dollar to set the value of oil trades — a direct threat to the global supremacy of the greenback.

Is it true? Everyone from the head of the Saudi central bank to U.S. officials scrambled to undercut the story, but no matter.

With the U.S. economy on the ropes and America by far the world’s biggest debtor, investors aren’t feeling as secure about the dollar as they used to. And the notion of second-tier economies ganging up on Uncle Sam didn’t sound so far-fetched.

For American officials, the possibility of the dollar losing its long-term dominance in global commerce is a nightmare scenario because it would likely mean sharply higher interest rates at home and a declining ability to finance the U.S. debt. No one believes it could really happen right now, but stories like the British report this week make it seem incrementally more likely.

So the piece by Robert Fisk of the Independent shocked currency traders around the world and almost instantly sent the value of the U.S. dollar spiraling downward and the price of gold skyrocketing to an all-time high, as a hedge against a weakened dollar.

The website drudgereport.com quickly amplified the impact of the story with a headline atop the site: ARAB STATES LAUNCH SECRET MOVES WITH CHINA, RUSSIA, FRANCE TO STOP USING DOLLAR FOR OIL TRADING ...

“You read that story, and you do two things: You sell the hell out of dollars and you buy gold,” said Les Alperstein, president of the financial research firm Washington Analysis. “The story has a lot of credibility, with some caveats.”

So who wanted dollars diving and gold rising? In other words, who is Fisk’s source, and why did he or she want to tank the dollar? It’s the global currency version of the old Washington parlor game of speculating on the real identity of Deep Throat.

No one knows.

But one thing is for certain: With the price of gold jumping to $1,048.20 per ounce, traders who moved early enough stood to make millions.

So in government circles in Washington, speculation immediately centered on gold traders: With the skyrocketing price of gold, they’d be the biggest beneficiaries of the article.

Fisk’s story itself isn’t much help in solving the mystery — it is sourced vaguely to “Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong,” and it included one blind quote, attributed to “a prominent Hong Kong broker.” That doesn’t narrow down the pool very much.

The story doesn’t name any officials who had allegedly participated in the secret meetings involving the Arab states. It didn’t say where the meetings occurred or when. Other than saying the plan is to stop using the dollar by 2018, there was precious little detail to the account.

Around the world, traders turned to Wikipedia to find out more about Fisk himself. There, they learned that Fisk is a legendary British foreign correspondent who has been based in Beirut for more than 30 years and has won a slew of journalism awards. They also learned that he is one of only a few journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden (three times) and that he has expressed doubts that the United States has told the full story about the Sept. 11 attacks.

An analyst’s report from the Royal Bank of Scotland concluded, “Fisk is a veteran of the Middle East. ... he is also increasingly associated with more radical theories thus weakening the credibility of the story.”

Beyond the specifics of the story, the geopolitical implications of the report sent shudders from Riyadh to London to Washington: Has the long-dominant American economy been so humbled by the economic crisis that these nations would mount a frontal attack on the dollar, the underpinning of the world’s biggest economy?

That question is on the minds of global investors, who are keeping a skittish eye on the weakening dollar. And over the past several months there has been a steady drumbeat of Chinese, Russian and other officials who have talked openly about finding a replacement for the dollar as the global economy’s default currency. Any effort to do that would be fraught with difficulty. But however unlikely, the possibility represents a threat to the American economy, which has come to depend on the significant advantages it reaps from minting the currency most used around the world.

In another era, the dollar could shrug off such a vaguely sourced, thinly detailed story.

But not anymore.

The dollar is weak and vulnerable to rumor-mongering because many traders believe it will only get weaker. “The fundamental reason why this occurred is that after 9.8 percent unemployment on Friday, nobody can say with certainty that the recovery is sustainable,” said one analyst familiar with the situation.

“In years past, when the U.S. economic dominance was more pronounced and emerging markets were marginal players in the global economy,” noted an analyst’s report from HSBC, “the debate on pricing commodities in currencies other than the [U.S. dollar] typically came down to the lack of practicality. ... Today, emerging markets are clearly wielding much more influence in the global economy, and they want more, as will be borne out in this week’s IMF meetings.”

And that means U.S. officials whose job it is to defend the dollar may have their work cut out for them in the months to come.