Samsung and Numonyx B.V. today announced they are jointly developing market specifications for Phase Change Memory (PCM) products. The PCM is a next generation memory technology that produces very fast read and write speeds at lower power than conventional NOR and NAND flash memory, and allows for bit alterability normally seen in RAM.

Samsung and Numonyx are developing common specifications – or “pin for pin” hardware and software compatibility – for mobile, embedded and other potential computing applications supporting the JEDEC LPDDR2 Low Power Memory Device Standard.

Phase change memory has many of the advantages of NAND and NOR flash memory as well as other RAM memories – allowing data to be read at RAM speeds while lowering the cost and power consumption levels by reducing the large amounts of RAM often used in today’s digital applications.

Common specifications between the two companies will be completed this year, with both companies expecting to have compliant devices available next year.