Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

HP Backs Memristor Mass Production

Posted by Soulskill on from the can't-wait-for-the-next-round-of-patent-battles dept.

neo12 writes with news that Hewlett-Packard is teaming with Hynix Semiconductor, the world's second-largest producer of memory chips, to mass produce memristors for the first time. Quoting the BBC: "HP says the first memristors should be widely available in about three years. The devices started as a theoretical prediction in 1971 but HP's demonstration and publication of a real working device has put them on a possible roadmap to replace memory chips or even hard drives. ... Steve Furber, professor of computer engineering at the University of Manchester, explained that the potential benefits lie in the fact that memristors are 'much simpler in principle than transistors. Because they are formed as a film between two wires, they don't have to be implanted into the silicon surface — as do transistors, which form the storage locations in Flash — so they could be built in layers in 3D,' he told BBC News. 'Of course, the devil is in the detail, and I don't think the manufacturing challenges have been fully exposed yet.'"

4 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Haven't heard of this one by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Informative
    Up until recently the memristor was a theoretical fundamental circuit element (like resistor, capacitor and inductor - but the are easy to create in the real world). A few years ago they were actually created and there is a lot of interesting things you can do with the technology

    For more info see The mysterious memristor

    Or just search Google memristor ieee

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
  2. Re:Can someone explain how the memristor work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The resistance of the memristor can be viewed as a function of the sum of the current that has passed through it (including the effects of polarity). A write would be performed by sending a larger current through the memristor in the right direction to increase or decrease the resistance; a read would be performed at lower currents that would not change the overall state of the memristor.

  3. the math has more to it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    among other things, memristive slime mold modeling and synaptic chain behaviours...

  4. Re:layered in 3 dimensions...hmmm by Ogi_UnixNut · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From what I've read about memristor's, they don't wear out like Flash does. They are also massively faster than Flash memory. Think of it as a hybrid of RAM and Flash.

    In fact, from what I read I think these devices (if they live up to what people are saying about them) will be able to replace both RAM and Disks/SSD's. Instead we'd just have one set of primary memory where everything happens.

    Now we just have to see if they can do what is postulated, and how much it will cost to manufacture. If cheap enough to be worth buying due to their benefits, then they will have a huge effect on computing.