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HP Reports Memory Resistor Breakthrough

Posted by samzenpus on from the flip-the-switches dept.

andy1307 writes "Hewlett-Packard scientists on Thursday will report advances demonstrating significant progress in the design of memristors, or memory resistors. The researchers previously reported in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they had devised a new method for storing and retrieving information from a vast three-dimensional array of memristors. The scheme could potentially free designers to stack thousands of switches on top of one another in a high-rise fashion, permitting a new class of ultra-dense computing devices even after two-dimensional scaling reaches fundamental limits."

2 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Heat? by HiThere · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes. Memristors don't require that power be applied in order to retain memory state. Heat might limit write and retrieval rate, but it wouldn't limit the number of layers. I suspect that it might make heat pipes built into the memory boards to be a highly desirable option, but that would be to enable faster access, not to allow a greater number of layers.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  2. Research! YES! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Finally something that sounds like it's actually patentable.

    And not just patentable, but good solid research. It seems to me that lately, US companies have been cutting and cutting R&D budgets. The markets are so focused on who makes their current quarter earnings marks, and sinking money into innovation does not help towards making that profits goal. And because of this, it seems that we have lost touch with planning for the future.

    That always made me sick to my stomach. I am always thrilled when these big companies, that spun up and put technology where it is today, the HPs, the IBMs, the Xeroxs, the ATT/Bell/Lucents, etc., come out with something cool. I even like it when the small guys do something, but often they dont have the money to make it all the way to market.

    Anyway, my point is, I hope we see corporations (and everyone else, like NASA, etc) realize how important science and innovation are to our future. I hope that we can get back to the "old days" of (literally) shooting for the moon and achieving it, rather than spending money on fluffy marketing and trying to squeeze out margins with just barely passable work.

    This kinda stuff, I love. More please!

    (sorry for a horribly written post)