HP Creates First Hybrid Memristor Chip

An anonymous reader writes "HP researchers have built the first functioning hybrid memristor-transistor chip. Lead researcher Stanley Williams and his team built the very first memristor — the '4th fundamental element' of integrated circuits after resistors, capacitors and inductors — back in April. Memristors can remember their resistance, leading to novel electronic capabilities. The new FPGA circuit uses memristors to perform tasks normally carried out by (many more) transistors and is therefore smaller, more power efficient and cheaper to make, HP says. Memristors could also turn out to be a more compact, faster alternative to flash memory."

Comments

Re:size?

[The-Pheon]

Does anyone know what size features the chip was etched at? um? nm? That might give a clue how close it is to being used in other products.

The memristors made in April were 50 nm wide

Re:How does it replace multiple transistors

[IceMonkiesForSenate]

In general there are two ways to store data (at least in a RAM type memory module). You can either use a capacitor (like DRAM) or a flip flop (SRAM). The problem with a capacitor is that it looses it's charge after a certain amount of time, and has to be refreshed (which is why DRAM is relatively slow). A flip-flop can be used to store one bit, but in order to do that two separate latches are needed. One latch has 2-4 gates each having 2-8 transistors. All of a sudden there are over a dozen transistors used to store one but. A memristior does not actually help any calculations, it just hopefully make storing data much more efficent

Re:Spice model

[TheNecromancer]

Who is the idiot modding this as Funny? A SPICE model is an engineering tool used to diagram circuits. It is NOT related to any of the Spice Girls!!! :p

Where's the link to MetaModerate?? grrr...