- UltraRAM seeks to unify storage and memory after decades of attempts
- Innovate UK funding in 2023 gave Quinas Technology critical momentum
- Recognition at the Flash Memory Summit elevated UltraRAM’s commercial visibility
The pursuit of a single memory able to combine the persistence of flash storage with the speed of system memory has been ongoing for decades.
Several candidates, such as resistive memory, magnetoresistive cells, and Intel’s Optane SSDs, attempted to merge these roles, but none lasted in mainstream markets.
However, a few years ago, attention shifted to UltraRAM, a technology originally devised at Lancaster University and later advanced by Quinas Technology, a UK-based startup founded to turn the research into a practical product.
From academic research to prototype memory
Early studies described this technology as “a nonvolatile memory with the potential to achieve fast, ultralow-energy electron storage,” raising hopes that it could bridge the gap between SSD and RAM.
Momentum grew in 2023 when Quinas Technology secured a grant from Innovate UK, a government agency supporting commercial science.
The award followed its recognition at the Flash Memory Summit that same year, where the firm won the prize for most innovative flash memory startup.
The funding allowed Quinas to move from lab-scale prototypes toward nanometer-scale devices, a key requirement if UltraRAM is to compete with the largest SSD and RAM products on the market.
For a national body to place confidence in the project and even fund it suggests that UltraRAM has progressed beyond speculative research.
This represents the kind of “massive boost” required to begin serious scaling work, a step often missing from earlier memory technologies that faltered before production.
UltraRAM is said to combine fast access times with ultralow switching energy and storage endurance potentially measured in centuries.
It is also a technology whose longevity exceeds that of an average SSD flash storage, but with a lower power demand.
It promises to match the read and write speeds of RAM while offering the non-volatility of NAND.
If such claims hold at scale, future computing devices could merge storage and memory into a single layer.
It will not only eliminate the traditional divide between SSD and RAM, but it could also make conventional memory DIMMs obsolete because it combines the speed of DRAM with the persistence of flash while removing the inefficiencies that affect both.
Unlike DRAM, it does not require constant refreshing or destructive reads, and unlike flash, it does not need charge pumps or wear leveling.
Yet the industrial challenges are not to be underestimated. Intel’s Optane technology also promised a hybrid solution but was ultimately withdrawn due to poor adoption and high costs.
Manufacturing density comparable with today’s largest SSD, along with consistent yields below ten nanometers, remains uncertain.
These barriers mean the idea of UltraRAM as a universal memory still sits closer to aspiration than guaranteed outcome.
Via PC Gamer
