IBM Research - Zurich has announced new type of inexpensive and reliable universal non-volatile memory, called phase change memory (PCM).Shattering records,it supposedly reads and writes 100 times faster than conventional flash - based memory with a latency of 10 microseconds, and is also several of order of magnitudes more reliable,with 10 million estimated write-cycles. Surprisingly, the technology behind phase change memory is not expensive and can be commercially used for a variety of devices requiring storage and memory,from servers to tablets.It's not going to be hitting markets very soon,with IBM stating the technology would enable 'a paradigm shift for enterprise IT and storage systems including cloud computing by 2016'. IBM's phase- change memory built using cells created from a special alloy , which can be electrically controlled into different physical states - crystalline with low resistance properties, amorphous with high resistance properties.Each allo...