Transcript Memristor * A nonvolatile storage solution

THE MEMRISTOR WAS ENVISIONED BY CIRCUIT THEORIST
LEON CHUA IN 1971. CHUA CLAIMS THE MEMRISTOR IS
ACTUALLY THE OLDEST KNOWN CIRCUIT ELEMENT WITH ITS
EFFECTS PREDATING THE RESISTOR, CAPACITOR, AND THE
INDUCTOR.
An analogy: a memristor is a pipe that changes
diameter with the amount and direction of water that
flows through it. If water flows through this pipe in
one direction, it expands (becoming less resistive). But
send the water in the opposite direction and the pipe
shrinks (becoming more resistive). Further, the
memristor remembers its diameter when water last
went through. Turn off the flow and the diameter of
the pipe ”freezes” until the water is turned back on.
That freezing property suits memristors brilliantly for
computer memory. The ability to indefinitely store
resistance values means that a memristor can be used
as a nonvolatile memory.
GENERALIZED AS A FOURTH ELECTRICAL COMPONENT,
ALONG WITH THE RESISTOR, CAPACITOR, AND THE
INDUCTOR.
SOME RESEARCHERS BELIEVE THAT HUMAN BLOOD AND SKIN
SHOULD BE CLASSIFIED AS MEMRISTORS.
IT IS CURRENTLY BEING DEVELOPED BY HP, SK HYNIX, AND
HRL LABORATORIES AND COULD POSSIBLY BE AVAILABLE
COMMERCIALLY BY THE END OF 2014.
“Memristor memory chips promise to run at least ten times faster
and use ten times less power than an equivalent Flash memory
chip,” - Stan Williams.
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In the near term, the most obvious application for memristor technology is as a replacement for Flash memory. “Memristor
memory chips promise to run at least ten times faster and use ten times less power than an equivalent Flash memory chip,”
•
Memristors can retain information even when the power is off and are highly energy efficient. This means that your laptop
could boot up much faster and last longer on one charge since it consumes less energy. Given the number and sophistication
of apps running on smartphones, this should also significantly extend the usable time between charges.
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Memristors fundamentally operate in a similar fashion as the biological synapses in the human brain. Another potential
application of memristor technology would be an 'artificial synapse' in a circuit designed for analog computation.
“We believe that the memristor is a universal memory technology that over time
could replace Flash, DRAM, and even hard drives,” - Stan Williams, HP Senior
Fellow and founding Director of the Information and Quantum Systems Lab (IQSL).
MEMRISTOR
– A NONVOLATILE STORAGE SOLUTION
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http://againsttheodds.hubpages.com/hub/Memri
stor-Memory-Circuits
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http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/0
7/hp-memristors/
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http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/storage/display
/20120927125227_HP_and_Hynix_Cancel_Pla
ns_to_Commercialize_Memristor_Based_Memory
_in_2013.html
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http://highscalability.com/blog/2010/5/5/how
-will-memristors-change-everything.html
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http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/DataCentral/HP-and-Hynix-Bringing-the-memristorto-market-in-next-generation/ba-p/82218