Did you know that behind this little black thing can be said to be the ultimate display of human craft civilization! Huh, is that exaggerated? Today, let's talk about "memory"! Hiho~ Hello everyone, I'm Zhiqi! As long as you have ever bought a computer and mobile phone , you must have heard of the word "RAM memory" , but it may be difficult for us to imagine that this inconspicuous little thing turns out to be the most lucrative thing in the global semiconductor industry. Last year alone, the global Just sold 150 billion US dollars , which is more than 4 trillion Taiwan dollars of memory! Moreover, one of the most advanced memory manufacturing plants in the world was originally located in Taiwan . What is this memory used for, and why is it so profitable? And people often say that the memory is not enough, and the memory is too much. What does that mean? Let's take a look at "RAM memory and the story behind it" today! [The world before the invention of memory...] To talk about memory, we must first talk about why memory is needed? Many people should have heard that the early computers were not only very slow, but also required a room the size of an entire room . One of the reasons for this is that computers at that time could only execute one program at a time, and every time the program was changed, the Very troublesome What does this mean? Let's take a super super simplified example. For example , I have a piece of information in my hand, and I want to "add" them first and then "multiply" them. But after the ancestor computers completed the "addition", because no one told him how to do the "multiplication", it couldn't continue. This required manual wiring and switching to the "multiplication" program before he could continue the calculation. Of course, this is very cumbersome and time-consuming, and the vacuum tubes used to store different programs take up a lot of space . Therefore, in 1945, a genius mathematician von Neumann proposed a "von Neumann architecture" , which has a revolutionary approach. Yes , store different programs in the same "memory" first, so that you don't have to manually change it all the time, just tell the computer which program to read now . By the way, until today, more than 70 years later Our mobile phones and laptops are still made with the Von Neumann architecture ! But here comes the question, what exactly is this key "memory"? 【What is memory? 】 Nowadays, when we buy computers and mobile phones, we usually refer to the collective name of DRAM. However, DRAM is actually only a member of the memory family, such as CD-ROM, hard disk, USB, etc., which are also a kind of memory. In the memory family, it can be mainly divided into two categories: "volatile" and "non-volatile". In short, "volatile" refers to the memory whose data will disappear when power is turned off. "Non-volatile" refers to the data after power failure. Memory That Won't Gone Eh , wait, why do we need memory that "goes out of power"? Wouldn't it be nice if the data never disappeared? This is about how the computer works [what is the memory for? ] The most critical role in making a computer work can be simplified into three parts: "processor CPU", "RAM" and "hard disk" . You can imagine a restaurant where the CPU is the chef of the restaurant, responsible for computing and processing data. Dish is the warehouse and outfield of the restaurant, responsible for storing data and programs, but every time the chef prepares a dish, he has to go to the outfield to order food from the guests, then go to the warehouse to get the ingredients and cook, and then after cooking, he has to cook it by himself. If the cooked food is sent back to the hard disk , then the efficiency of this restaurant will be very poor . Therefore, another RAM is needed at this time. As the middle helper, the RAM will prepare the orders and ingredients from the hard disk first , then the CPU chef will It can be processed very quickly. After the CPU has finished processing, the RAM is responsible for processing the data and sending it back to the hard disk. In this way , the CPU, RAM and hard disk can all be used to the maximum efficiency . The operation of the entire restaurant will be Get a lot faster! That's because RAM processes different data each time and does not need long-term memory. The focus is on speed, so faster "volatile memory" is used. Because hard disks need to store data for a long time, speed is not the focus. So traditionally, The "non-volatile memory" that will be used slowly but the data will not disappear after a power failure is also mentioned by the way. From the above description, you can also know that when buying a computer and mobile phone, the performance of these three things must be Matching with each other A computer with only a large hard disk or a very powerful CPU may not necessarily run very fast! Well, after we know what RAM is used for, the next question we can ask is, how does RAM "memory"? [How does memory remember? ] You may have heard that there are only 0s and 1s in the computer world, so to make the computer have memory, you need something that can remember 0s and 1s. In order to do this, humans have tried many different approaches . For example, The early memory mainly used vacuum tubes. The computer would judge whether it was 0 or 1 according to the positive and negative poles, but the vacuum tube took up a lot of space and was easy to burn out . Later, "magnetic core memory" appeared, which used the cable to pass through the magnetic ring according to whether it was magnetic or not. The magnetic state represents the memory of 0 or 1 at that time. It was even hand-woven by female workers. Don't look at it as rough. Even the computers that humans landed on the moon used memory with similar technology! And at the time, the moon landing computer had only 4KB of RAM! Well, fast forward to the 1960s , a revolutionary invention called "Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS)" appeared , which allowed the memory unit of memory to be reduced to a small chip, and the power consumption and performance were also greatly improved . , how is this done? [Modern memory] Taking the most familiar DRAM, modern memory mainly uses "transistor + capacitor" to form a memory unit. How small is this memory unit? If we zoomed in on a chip to the size of a standard football field, you pulled a piece of grass from the field and cut that grass in half, half, half... Well, a transistor is about that big, bigger than a human cell. still small! So there are more than 8 billion such memory units in just one 1GB of DRAM ! Going back and comparing, although the earliest computer that used vacuum tubes as memory took up the whole room and weighed more than 1,000 kilograms, its RAM was only 128 bytes . Today, an ordinary mobile phone with 4GB RAM has billions of times more RAM! 【Faster and more advanced memory! ] Although human memory technology has developed amazingly in just a few decades, with the development of new technologies such as AI and 5G, human beings have an increasing demand for computing, which also requires faster and more powerful memory. How can this be done? There are two possible ways here . The first one is to "increase the working speed and frequency of RAM." Using the example of the restaurant helper in front of us, it is to "strengthen the working ability of the helper" so that the amount of data they carry each time changes. More and faster The so-called DDR2, 3, 4, and 5 refer to the generational progress of RAM in this regard. The second method is to "increase the size of the RAM" , that is, "increase the number of helpers". This is easier to understand. It is equivalent to inserting more memory units into each memory chip. But this is easy to say, it can be said that it is difficult to explode on such a small chip to continue to plug more memory units! As long as there is a tiny bit of dust particles, or if the circuit is carved a little bit, the entire chip will fail. So the most advanced memory technology today is in a huge clean room, using exposure and development technology to apply light on the chip with extreme precision. It is no exaggeration to say that this kind of technology can be said to be the ultimate display of human craft civilization, which is why this humble memory can bring in amazing revenue every year . What’s more interesting is that currently the world’s most advanced DRAM is made in Taiwan! And you may also have the opportunity to meet in person! [Global memory leader - Micron Technology! ] Yes, when it comes to memory, of course we can't ignore our godfather "Micron Technology" in this episode! Micron is one of the top five semiconductor companies in the world and the largest foreign company in Taiwan. They continue to make breakthroughs in DRAM process technology and lead the industry. Its 1α DRAM and 176-layer NAND are the most advanced mass-produced products in the industry. The new 1β DRAM and 232-layer NAND is also expected to be mass-produced by the end of this year. Moreover , Micron also attaches great importance to its layout in Taiwan. The A3 fab in Taichung is one of the most advanced fabs in the industry. In the second half of the year, Micron will introduce EUV machines for the next generation. Preparation for mass production of the 1γ node Micron also expects to set up an R&D corridor in Taiwan in the future! So now, Micron is actively recruiting talents! They expect to recruit about 2,000 more senior talents and newcomers in Taiwan in the next 2-3 years . In addition to traditional process, quality, and equipment engineers , talents with related majors such as "smart manufacturing" or "data science" are very welcome. join in! Joining Micron, in addition to having access to the world's top teams and technologies and challenging the annual salary of millions, Micron also provides an "employee stock purchase plan" that allows employees to buy company stocks at a 15% discount . Sending opportunities Micron provides housing subsidies and transportation allowances , allowing you to shine on a larger stage. Even if you cannot go abroad due to the impact of the epidemic , Micron also allows you to exchange and cooperate with outstanding talents in various countries. You can cultivate international competitiveness in Taiwan! If you want to switch to different runways , Micron also provides an internal transfer system to help employees challenge new things in the most familiar environment. In addition , Micron also emphasizes the corporate culture of "diversity", "equality" and "inclusiveness" . Female and foreign employees Dedicated to meeting the needs of multicultural identity Even if you are a student with no work experience, you don’t have to worry Micron also provides a solid internship program and generous internship salary every year, allowing you to quickly and painlessly integrate into the workplace and even have the opportunity Directly transferred to positive ~ so viewers in need, hurry up and click on the information bar or search for "Join Micron" to learn more information! [Our point of view] That's because our work often requires a lot of image processing, and many people in the team usually like to play games. They are not too unfamiliar with the terms RAM and memory, so before serious research, we also feel that... Well, this is a very ordinary thing . I don't think there is anything too interesting. I didn't expect that after digging carefully, I found that the story behind it is too cool! It's hard to imagine that the things we use every day have gone through so many difficult technologies, and it's only about 70 years from a computer with only a few hundred bytes of RAM to 4GB or 8GB for any mobile phone. It's really amazing. Of course , because the technology and story behind this are too complicated , we can only use a very simplified way to briefly introduce some fur, and some metaphors may not be completely accurate . If you are a related professional audience You are also very welcome to add and share in the message~ OK, that's the end of today's show, and finally I want to ask everyone. Finally , if you like today's video, please share it and let more people know "Story of Memory"! In addition, you can also click here to see "Semiconductor Industry" and "The Strange Cold Knowledge of the Bed" Then, today's Zhiqi Qiqi will come to an end here . See you tomorrow night~!
