HP memristors will reinvent computer memory ‘by 2014′
July 13, 2012 | Source: Wired Enterprise
Atomic Force Microscope image of a memristor circuit array (credit: HP Laboratories)
HP is two and half years away from offering hardware that stores data with memristors, a new breed of electrical building-block that could lead to servers and other devices that are far more efficient than today’s machines.
As reported by The Register, at a recent conference in Oxnard, California, HP’s Stan Williams said that commercial memristor hardware will be available by the end of 2014 at the earliest.
Historically, electrical circuits were crafted with three basic building blocks: the capacitor, the resistor, and the inductor. But in 1971, University of California at Berkeley professor Leon Chua predicted the existence of a fourth: the memristor, short for memory resistor.
Like an ordinary resistor, a memristor would create and maintain a safe flow of electrical current across a device, but unlike a resistor, it would “remember” charges even when it lost power. This would allow it to store information — i.e., serve as computer memory.
In May 2008, HP announced that it had actually built a memristor, thanks to HP Labs Fellow R. Stanley Williams and others working in the company’s research arm. Williams and team fashioned their memristor using the semiconductor titanium dioxide.
The device, Williams said at the time, could provide a more efficient form of non-volatile memory — memory that can retain its information even when it loses power. According to Williams, it will significantly outperform flash memory — which is used today in smartphones, tablets, and even data centers.
“[The memristor] holds its memory longer,” Williams said. “It’s simpler. It’s easier to make — which means it’s cheaper — and it can be switched a lot faster, with less energy.”
Comments (7)
by A Physicist
In the meantime, severe questions have arisen with respect to the physical validity of the memristor concept. When analyzed under the viewpoint of physics, the hypothetical state equations defining non-volatile memristors are by themselves in severe conflict with fundamentals of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. The critique can be found in “Fundamental Issues and Problems in the Realization of Memristors” by P. Meuffels and R. Soni (http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.7319) and “On the physical properties of memristive, memcapacitive, and meminductive systems” by M. Di Ventra and Y. V. Pershin (http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.7063).
by Gorden Russell
If only my ’09 HP can last that long.
by Emmanuel Brulefer
The start of real technological evolution will be in 2015.
by Tom Moriarty
HP may well be out of business by the end of 2014. The company seems lost.
by MrFriendly
Hm, from what I’ve read, current memristor implementations still suffer from significant amounts of “noise,” which makes their data storage and processing prone to errors.
by Walter Baltzley
They DID say it would take 2.5 years of development to get it right…
by MrFriendly
HP has implied that the delay is not technical, but rather one of profitability, since this technology will pretty much replace flash. However, I think memristors are turning out to be more of a challenge than they first believed, based on difficulties encountered by other groups working to perfect its implementation. I wouldn’t be surprised if they delay it again.