Apple buying up all the gigabytes!?

[=MuLti-CeLL=]

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...lable_flash_ram_supplies_for_next_iphone.html

Oops, sorry for the typo, I was typing fast in the line at Subway, hehe.

A report issued on the flash RAM market indicates that Apple is inhaling supplies of memory components in preparation for the next generation iPhone, causing part shortages and raising the spot price for memory.

 

[Theaser]

That article should be renamed to "Apple buys up all the Samsung memory cards"

1 GB RAM? That's going to be very interesting, go new iPhone!

 

[goosnarrggh]

That article should be renamed to "Apple buys up all the Samsung memory cards"

1 GB RAM? That's going to be very interesting, go new iPhone!

There is a movement of revisionist history out there trying to reclassify all forms of Flash storage as RAM.

In the context of an iPhone, it's a laughable concept: The NAND Flash storage in an iPhone is NOT (and CANNOT be*) used as fully random-access system memory by the CPU (certainly not for writing, and to a lesser extent, even for reading), but rather as a hard drive replacement.

*OK, with the help of a MMU, you could make use of the NAND Flash storage as swap space, but that's about it. The iPhone doesn't make such use.

 

[kdarling]

The NAND Flash storage in an iPhone is NOT (and CANNOT be*) used as fully random-access system memory by the CPU ...

Exactly right.

It cannot be called RAM, as it is really EEPROM. And the NAND version is, as you say, suitable only for mass storage, as the CPU cannot execute code directly from it.

"Flash memory" is a better general term. Too bad the article confused "memory" with "RAM".