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The HP Memristor Debate
New submitter AaronLS writes "There has been a debate about whether HP has or has not developed a memristor. Since it's something fairly different from existing technologies, and similar in many ways to a memristor, I think they felt comfortable using the term. However, the company has been criticized for using that labeling by former U.S. patent officer Blaise Moutett. On the other hand, had HP created a new, unique label, they would have probably gotten flack for pretending it's something new when it's not. Will anything positive come from this debate? Electrical engineering analyst Martin Reynolds sums it up nicely: 'Is Stan Williams being sloppy by calling it a "memristor"? Yeah, he is. Is Blaise Moutett being pedantic in saying it is not a "memristor"? Yeah, he is. [...] At the end of day, it doesn't matter how it works as long as it gives us the ability to build devices with really high density storage.'"
I feel like I'm eavesdropping in the middle of a conversation between two mental patients.
Someone's pinched their hysteresis curve? Groan ...
The purpose of existence is to make money.
I'm sorry, but I shouldn't have to RTFA just to understand the key word in the summary ("memristor"). It's sloppy writing not to explain it. It's like a newspaper headline - it's supposed to draw in your interest to read the article. I have no f'ing idea what a memristor is so no idea if I give a rat's poop about it.
Bark less. Wag more.
For those like me that went huh?
The memristor ( /mmrstr/; a portmanteau of "memory resistor") was originally envisioned in 1971 by circuit theorist Leon Chua as a missing non-linear passive two-terminal electrical component relating electric charge and magnetic flux linkage. More recently the memristor definition was generalized by Leon Chua to cover all forms of 2-terminal non-volatile memory devices based on resistance switching effects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor
Personally, I still have no idea.
. .
All diodes are light emitting if you put enough current through them. All resistors are memristors if you write something on them. WTF is this about? A little background, please?
'They' say it isn't a true memristor because its data deteriorates a bit over time. But ... isn't that true of all other current basic electronic components as well? Capacitors have some leakage, making it a 'bit' a resistor. Inductors do not have a perfect Q. Even at its resonance point some energy is dissipated as heat, dampening the resonance circuit it is part of and making it a 'bit' a resistor as well. Resistors are most of the time at least 'half' a winding on a 'coil'... when alternating current passes through them with a high frequency, they act a 'bit' as an inductor. And they may have a parasitic capacitance with other components near it.
So, what gives if this HP invention is not the 'perfect' memristor. As long as it's close enough, it would do. In other words: if it quacks like a duck...
all the way from 2008.... seriously?
Former U.S. patent officer calls someone unethical. The mind boggles.
And as if that weren't enough, he has patents in the area himself and therefore cannot be a fair witness.
Skepticism about radical new devices is always healthy, but Mouttet's opinion on this topic inspires the opposite of confidence.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
For Example: In todays fog-bound and befuddled cellular market we find people BLATANTLY branding their products 4G when , in actual fact, they are NOT.
And no I'm not just talking about The BIG A who chose to market their 4G (ie LTE capable) product in Australia as such even though it COULD NOT talk to the LTE network in Australia. I'm talking about branding a product as 4G when it DOES NOT USE ACTUAL 4G TECHNOLOGY.
So if there's no real (ie financially punitive damages) backlash in the 4G-not-really arena, then why should we care about "you say poh-tay-toh, I say spud" rapidly approaching in the *istor market?
After all, in this case The End User is *actually* going to see huge benefits from the new technology (as opposed to tons of marketing-hype, additional cost, and zero actual benefit as seen with some vendors of "4G")
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Do you have any ASCII art of naked women?
The above comments were unusually clueless, so here's a new topic, way at the bottom.
Do any of the previous posters have any actual experience dealing with memristors? My phone rang off the hook when this BS story hit the Internet a few years ago. I worked at QuckLogic, where we built "memristors", but failed to have the marketing brilliance to call them anything other than "antifuses". I don't blame the guy at HP who did pull this off. That's how the game is played.
Here's reality. "Memristors" are the basis of Actel and QuickLogic antifuse based FPGAs. We had them characterized years before they were discovered by HP. The more charge you put through them, the lower the resistance. If you put current the other way, the resistance goes up. It was somewhat linear, so I have to beat myself up for not calling them memristors.
HP won the marketing round. However, people now have high expectations for this technology making something useful. If they want to make programmable logic out of it, they should talk to someone like me.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
why of course! :P
no wonder yanks have such a buggeted patent system,what a name,did blaise moutett,escaped from the set of gone with the wind,did it? .
"Some elitist scientists argued about something you wouldn't understand. That proves scientists can't be trusted to tell the truth about climate change".
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
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