Satellites have limited processing capabilities due to the various technological constraints of operating in space. Space agencies such as NASA have been trying to increase on-board image processing, as opposed to transmitting it to Earth for processing.
Having a satellite process its own data on-board is ideal because it won’t be subject to the latency caused by having to transmit data to Earth and back. Infineon Technologies — a large German-based integrated circuit manufacturer has been targeting space applications with their new QDR-II+ SRAM chips.
SRAM means Static Random Access Memory. SRAM is an extremely fast, albeit expensive type of RAM that does not rely on capacitors to store bits. SRAM stores bits (1s and 0s) using latching circuitry.