What's special about that is that there is no "application specific" implementation for memory. That is, dedicated hardware for memory is, well, memory. So you can't build an ASIC for it. You could build a striped down equivalent of a graphic card for scrypt. But it won't be a massive jump like like it was with bitcoin's sha256, it might just be a little more cheaper and perhaps power consumption optimized. Not a game-changer.
That's a load of shit.
Memory is an ASIC, it's application specific purpose is to store data. It's just generically useful so it has it's own name, "RAM" etc rather than calling it a storage ASIC all the time. Generally however, it's more efficient to use a specialised process for memory and "on die" memory is typically more costly to implement than off die memory. On die memory though, can be an order of magnitude faster. There is nothing magic about it though, it's just another arrangement of circuit elements. It is particularly inefficient to implement in FPGA, where you have multiple logic elements required to pretend to be a single logic element, and two logic elements are required to emulate a memory cell, whereas in dedicated RAM or RAM implemented on an ASIC you get a couple of circuit elements per bit, on FPGA you end up using hundreds.
However, yes, ASIC for scrypt will likely not be such a massive jump, it will be more like SHA256 on FPGA compared to on GPU, as opposed to GPU to ASIC.
Alpha Technology is in the forum's hive mind "Everything is a scam until we see hardware" bracket at the moment, which even genuine SHA ASIC manufacturers get moved into as they announce new products, until they demo them... we have a bit of a cry wolf problem with that... but also we don't have reliable methods of certifying "genuineness" and the term "scam" is abused frequently.
So, what is Alpha Tech? It's a large risk, they are unproven. They may or may not know what they are doing. They may or may not fold under the pressure of forum criticism, or even premature legal filings by nervous pre-orderers. Yah, that can happen, people are more than willing to shoot themselves in the foot to "Prove a point"
I read through all the "Look at me I'm an interweb detective" nonsense on reddit, litecointalk and here, and it actually made my mind up that Alpha were probably serious, therefore I have used a reversible method of payment to place a deposit with them. Why so? Because I tell you, one of my biggest fears waiting for my BFL stuff was that hotheaded idiots with large caliber lawyers would get them shut down before they delivered mine. In that sitch my BTC would be gone, so considering all the lunacy coalescing around Alpha Tech at the moment, I thought I'd take precautions.
Anyway, Alpha may fail, I may lose my money, but if not I'll get an ASIC scrypt machine and enable that forum darling project that claims it won't launch hardware until it gets competition, whereupon you can order from them, you're welcome.
