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Yousuf Khan · Guest

This I was not aware of, but apparently in the 1st generation Z-RAM,
distinguishing between a zero & a one was so minuscule that you had to
compare them against reference cells of a zero and a one. But the second
generation has a large enough differential that you don't need a
reference cell anymore, thus saving some time.

Also, despite the fact that the charge capacitance keeps going down as
they miniaturize the transistors, it doesn't matter as the effect on
current increases proportionally. Since you're usually reading current
and not charge itself, so you don't have to keep huge ever-unchanging
capacitors alongside tiny ever-changing transistors like you do with DRAM.

IEEE Spectrum: Winner: Masters of Memory
http://spectrum.ieee.org/jan07/4839