Toshiba has announced that it has developed a new FeRAM (Ferroelectric Random Access Memory) prototype which it claims is the world fastest and highest density non-volatile memory. Although the chip is only a mere 128 Megabit (16MB) in size, it has some very impressive performance figures, as it achieves read and write speeds of 1.6GB/s.

It's still very early days in FeRAM development and the prototype was made using a 130nm process which isn't exactly cutting edge, even when you're talking memory chips. However, this is likely to improve as Toshiba continues to develop its FeRAM manufacturing process.

What makes the new announcement even more interesting than the insanely high performance numbers, the new FeRAM prototype is using a DDR2 memory interface which should make it easy to integrate with common PC technology available today.

FeRAM looks set to offer much better performance than current DRAM and it has the added bonus of retaining its data state even when power is switched off which would make this an ideal solution for mobile devices. Toshiba still has some work to do before we'll see actual products hitting the market, but this is likely to be a very interesting development to follow.

You can find the press release here