> Memory controllers contain the logic necessary to read and write to DRAM, and to "refresh" the DRAM. Without constant refreshes, DRAM will lose the data written to it as the capacitors leak their charge within a fraction of a second (not more than 64 milliseconds according to JEDEC standards).

Do they use CPUs now?

I did hear that IBM was developing serial RAM (not NVRAM) with an onboard controller on the memory modules - with the need for firmware. Beyond that I didn't think memory controllers ran instructions from ROM or other instruction storage like a CPU.

As far as flash memory, they definitely use a CPU and that's what I meant by "storage" in my list. :)