The advent of Flash memory, first in consumer products and then in enterprise systems, firmly placed it in the memory hierarchy and inspired the exploration of computing and storage architectures that exploit the salient features of Flash, namely, non-volatility, low energy and high density. 
However, the ever increasing random and sequential I/O requirements of contemplated workloads, driven primarily by streaming analytics, have accelerated the move towards storage-class memory (SCM), i.e., a technology that blurs the distinction between memory and storage by enabling new data access modes and protocols that are neither ‘memory’ nor ‘storage’.  
In this presentation, I will first give an overview of the current status of Flash as well as of the emerging SCM technologies.  I will discuss various system aspects, including possible uses of SCM across the entire stack, and present an analysis of the implications this has for the various components. Also, key problems introduced by these new technologies are identified and solutions are outlined.
The emerging SCM technologies are also finding applications beyond the realm of memory.  It is becoming increasingly clear that for application areas such as cognitive computing, we need to transition to computing architectures in which memory and logic coexist in some form. Brain-inspired neuromorphic computing and the fascinating new area of memcomputing are two key non-von Neumann approaches being researched. A critical requirement in these novel computing paradigms is a very-high-density, low-power, variable-state, programmable and non-volatile nanoscale memory device, and the emerging SCM devices are well suited to address this need. I will present a few examples to highlight this fascinating new research area.

Evangelos Eleftheriou received a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Patras, Greece, in 1979, and M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, in 1981 and 1985, respectively. He joined the IBM Research – Zurich laboratory in Rüschlikon, Switzerland, as a Research Staff Member in 1986. Since 1998, he has held various management positions and currently heads the Cloud and Computing Infrastructure department of IBM Research – Zurich. He was named Master Inventor at IBM Research in 1999. In 2002, he became a Fellow of the IEEE. He was co-recipient of the 2003 IEEE Communications Society Leonard G. Abraham Prize Paper Award. He was also co-recipient of the 2005 Technology Award of the Eduard Rhein Foundation. In 2005, he was appointed IBM Fellow and inducted into the IBM Academy of Technology. In 2009, he was co-recipient of the IEEE CSS Control Systems Technology Award and the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Outstanding Paper Award.