New Memristor Makes Low-Cost, High-Density Memory

KentuckyFC writes "A group of electronics engineers have discovered that a thin layer of vanadium oxide acts as a memristor, the fourth basic component of circuits after resistors, capacitors, and inductors that was discovered last year. At a critical temperature, a current passing through the layer causes it to change from an insulating state to a metal-like state, thereby changing its resistance (abstract). The effect lasts many hours — which is what makes the layer a memristor (a resistor with memory). The team says this could be scaled up to make resistive random access memory, or RRAM, at very low cost, from little more than layers of vanadium oxide."

Comments

From the original announcment

[Baron_Yam]

I thought the more exciting announcement was that memristors could be tripled up to create transistors that were (despite being tripled up) still much smaller than a standard transistor.

Then, there were bits about them supporting more than just binary states, which would increase complexity and density yet again.

Denser memory may be the first pratical consumer product, but if the other possiblities work out, I'm pretty sure that memory will also be the least significant.

Re:From the original announcment

[BudAaron]

When I went through electronics school in the late 40s there were resistors, capacitors and inductors. The real news here is that we have a totally new circuit element and heaven only knows where that can take us.