By Dr. Mike Cooke 

 ABSTRACT

The fast rise of Flash memory has been driven by the explosion of storage needs for mobile electronic devices such as phones, mp3 players, digital video and still cameras, personal digital assistants, etc. The Flash memory market has become so established that it has begun showing the fluctuations that are so familiar, and loathed, in the dynamic random access (DRAM) sector. Here we look at roadblocks for Flash’s further development and consider alternatives, particularly the phase-change memory that is considered by many to have more scaling potential.