MAKE: Blog: The memristor

The memristor

Nimage 7991 Memristor

Purported to be the fourth major electronic component, HP is introducing the memristor -

The new component is called the "memristor" -- a word blend of "memory" and "resistor". The physical working model and the mathematical model of the component were presented side by side in a paper in the journal Nature, yesterday. Four researchers at the lab, led by R. Stanley Williams, presented the device which retains the history of information passed to it.

The device could make for computers that need no boot-up, never forget, use less power, and associate memories much like the human mind. Such possibilities were long considered the realm of science fiction. The realization of the device was 37 years in the making, and many had come to think it would never be created.

Will we be stocking these along with standard resistors and capacitors? Hrrmm, time will tell. - HP invents fabled memristor [Thanks, Kyle!]

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Comments

Oldest comments listed first.

Posted by: Ushanka on May 2, 2008 at 11:43 AM

Why are there no comments on this post? This has to be one of the more significant EE developments in recent years. HP just created a flux capacitor!

Posted by: hojo on May 2, 2008 at 2:08 PM

To be fair...

... I haven't read the Nature article yet, but based on the page from the link, I am gonna say, "what a bunch of hype."

Posted by: Angik Sarkar on May 5, 2008 at 12:01 PM

The HP people have not discovered a memristor, a simple laboratory observation has been hyped up..if what they have fabricated can be claimed as a memristor, a school can do one with capacitors..

Posted by: on May 5, 2008 at 3:48 PM

I've looked over the nature paper.

What it ignores is that charge distribution changes over nanometers, as a result of an applied electric field and ionic mobility, can change as a result of random diffusion and that same ionic mobility. Thus the "memristors" can lose their memories, especially as temperature rises.

Alzheimristors!

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