HP creates radical 'memristor' technology, brains explode
By Joshua Fruhlinger 
posted Apr 30th 2008 4:06PM
posted Apr 30th 2008 4:06PM
"Memristors" are one of several memory technologies that have been theorized and promised in the coming years. HP has made a real memristor, however, and the way solid state memory is created and stored could have just changed forever. First theorized in 1971, memristors are basic circuits like resistors, capacitors, and inductors. These circuits are able to store data by allowing their levels of electrical resistance to fluctuate between high and low, or 0 and 1 to a computer. Like flash memory, they retain that data without power -- except they do it all on one circuit and at the speed of D-RAM. In the end, we could be looking at a whole new kind of storage, as long as someone can figure out how to get these things onto integrated circuits. Nerds hats off, return to your fanboyism -- now.
Interesting!
Im waiting for Quantum Computers for the home.
Then, the question won't be "can we run Crysis"...it will be, how many sessions of Crysis would we like to run simultaneously.
You mean then the AI will calculate every possible movement from you so it will always win. Yeah, the future will be nice...
All I can say is: bring it on... I believe that storage technology needs to play a bit of catch up to the rest of computing. Any news about new solid state memory (methods) is good news in my book.
I like what HP is been doing in the last couple of years...
kudos!
yeah those virus infected thumb drives were a riot
They should do that more often- maybe people would get some sense, OS-wise.
I'll take a virus any day over buying a brand new computer for my kids, full of porn .
At least I can reformat my computer, but what do I do to an eight year old's brain?
http://consumerist.com/consumer/apple/apple-sells-refreshed-laptop-filled-with-porn-to-11-year-old-girl-218422.php
ah well. they gotta learn sometime eh?
@ Nabil
So basically, the father forgets to delete all his porn, his daughter finds out, and he tries to save face? ;-)
@Nabil
tell her that sex isn't evil, even if the us society tries to suggest otherwise. it's natural and she will enjoy it later.
I'm sure wikipedia has an answer, but you should have left the nerd hat on long enough to explain what differentiates a "memristor" from a resistor/inductor/capacitor/transistor....for those of us who never take off our nerd hats :)
Somehow the current re-distributes ions in the device, which changes the resistance value of it.
instead of storing a charge like a capacitor, it stores a resistance value. So when current goes through it, its resistance changes over time, and stays that way until reset by an opposite current. Something like that, but I don't fully understand yet.
Also, some of the articles I was reading also said that this somehow disproves large portions of circuit theory. Which I really don't understand at all.
I was hoping for video.... :(
"except they do it all on one circuit and at the speed of D-RAM"
Please elaborate.
Um... yeah. That's a bit of blogger artistic license I suppose because they actually run ten times slower than D-ram.
"The most significant limitation that the H.P. researchers said the new technology faces is that the memristors function about 10 times more slowly than today’s DRAM memory cells." -NYTimes
I read the Cnet article: "If memristors can be commercialized, it could lead to very dense, energy-efficient memory chips..." So my only querstions are; when, and how much faster can i play cryss...
but can it play doom?
lol PLEASE DO NOT BLAST ME IT WAS A JOKE!!!!!!!!
Hey It-Accountant... yes I am involved with CFL, and do you happen to be from NJ?
Yes! lol I think I know who you are... and what you're capable of!
You still on facebook? I'll send you a note. we need to catch up.
How romantic ;)
accounting is bad for your creativity
@ ethana2
There is nothing romantic about it! We're both straight guys who have known eachother for 4 years...
@phanbouy
I totally agree.
@IT-Accountant
alright, that makes me feel better... at first I thought you were leaf-eaters brother (Robert), stalking me to make sure I wasn't doing anything non work related during work hours... thats a relief.
it's interesting to see all the crazy developments in memory technology I've been reading about. This concept is new to me, and while I am still glad to see it could easily go into production at any time, I still wanna know what happened to MRAM, the chips that supposedly used magnetic fields to open and close circuit pathways. This was also supposed to be able to store data without power, but I haven't heard anything about it for some time.
MRAM? Seriously I'm holding one right now.
As far as we've tested they actually work but you wouldn't believe the problems in getting these things manufactured on any scale.
The ones we have don't quite work like typical RAM chips but they're not meant for consumers yet.
i suppose that is why i haven't heard anything about it recently. Thanks!
Ah, finally! A memory that's permanent, and yet fast enough to run my new advanced AI on. That was just the last thing I needed to finish building my T-800 home cleaning robot.
@ ethana2
There is nothing romantic about it! We're both straight guys who have known eachother for 4 years...
@phanbouy
I totally agree.
@IT-Accountant
alright, that makes me feel better... at first I thought you were leaf-eaters brother (Robert), stalking me to make sure I wasn't doing anything non work related during work hours... thats a relief.
A memristor is not a circuit, neither is a resistor, capacitor or inductor. it is just a component in a circuit.
Wow... Finally, something revolutionary is about to take place...
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i had an idea for gel based chips with in-laid circuits but i am nowhere near smart enough to figure out how to make it work i give all who read this permission to develop it. good luck... mixing these memristors and the gel chips would give infinite storage but hell WD would never sell another hard drive at that point.
What a coincidence! I had an idea for a gel-based flying car, but I too am not smart enough to implement it.
[/sarcasm]
Woulda been funnier without the html tag.
Too bad that's not even pseudo html. I think BBcode is the word you're looking for.
photoshopped
...the secret is HP printer Ink-based memory. But it's currently priced like liquid gold.
So maybe this means it would be good to time to buy HPQ before someone can explain this in terms understandable to stock brokers.
hi josh - now the engineers have figured out how to engineer a controllable nanoscale memristor switch -- meaning it's now possible to design them into integrated circuits.
see : http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2008/apr-jun/engineering_memristor.html
(full disclosure: I am the author of the story above.)