New Discovery Might Lead to Massive Increase in Flash Drive Capacity

Arizona State University researchers made a discovery recently that paves the way to a massive increase in the storage capacity for USB flash drives and other forms of flash storage. The new technique is called programmable metallization cell (PMC). The college claims that PMC technology can be 1000 times more efficient than existing flash memory.

To reach this huge increase in efficiency and capacity the new PMC technique actually moves the ions themselves inside the flash storage rather than moving electrons among the charged particles inside the drive. One researcher from the college says we should see flash drives based on this technology hit market within 18 months. The construction process uses materials that are currently readily available and it will cost no extra money to manufacture flash drives with PMC technology.