Skip to content
Documentation
Memory

Memory

A processor is useless without somewhere to put data. This section looks at how chips actually remember things: the fast, power-hungry cells in your CPU’s cache (SRAM), the dense, refresh-hungry cells in your main memory (DRAM), the non-volatile cells that keep your files intact with the power off (NAND flash), and a few up-and-coming technologies trying to get the best of all worlds.

SRAM
Six transistors locked in a standoff, holding one bit
DRAM
One transistor, one capacitor, and a race against leakage
NAND Flash
Trapping electrons on a floating gate to remember without power
Emerging Memory
MRAM, ReRAM, and PCM: chasing fast and non-volatile at once