Samsung is again making a claim for global leader in the next-generation memory chip market, this time introducing a nonvolatile PRAM chip that the company says is 30 times faster than today’s flash memory.

Vertical diodes and a 3D transit structure make for a small cell size, and the chip can store new data without first erasing the old, a significant improvement over today’s NOR and NAND chips. These smaller size and data storage requirements make for a tighter, more efficient processor.

Samsung, which today demonstrated a 512MB prototype of the PRAM chip, says it will be ready to ship in 2008.