Memristor Based RAM Could Be Out By 2009 142
neural.disruption writes "According to the EETimes, HP is announcing that it 'plans to unveil RRAM prototype chips based on memristors with crossbar arrays in 2009.' I don't know if you remember the earlier story about HP Labs proving the existence of the Memristor that had been predicted in 1971 by Leon Chua, and has the nice property of maintaining a memory of the current that passes by it. This could bring us a new type of small non-volatile high-speed RAM at low cost because of the low complexity of the mechanism employed."
Re:Still not holding my breath (Score:3, Informative)
MRAM does exist, it replaces battery backed 32KB SRAM chips.
Re:Security Concerns (Score:4, Informative)
near-instant-on effect
Now if only disk IO was actually the major delay in the boot process. You might consider driver initialization, software initialization, network delays, waiting for user interaction, etc.
Re:Still not holding my breath (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Security Concerns (Score:3, Informative)
I like how you've immediately assumed that I'm simply impatient just because YOU'VE never experienced what I'm referring to.
I notice in the list of electronic devices you have, none of them are Satellite/Cable boxes or Tivo-like devices.
I have one such device, it's a Cable box with a hard drive built into it and it takes a solid 2-3mins to start up.
Sure, that's not a big deal, it doesn't really bother me that much since I'm only missing 2-3mins of crap TV, but what does bother me is that the people who make it (Virgin Media, in case you're wondering - and it's British Company, don't want you assuming I'm making something up just because you may not have heard of it) say that you're not supposed to turn it off anyway.
Why would I want to keep such a box on 24/7 if I'm not even going to use it half of the time? Makes sense if I want to record something, sure, but I rarely record something every single day, or during the night when I'm asleep - so why not turn it off? It saves me money on electric and it saves the environment a little.
But I digress, the point is there ARE set-top boxes out there that take a long time to boot, so don't be so ignorant.
Besides, that was just ONE example where this technology could actually prove useful, I don't see you suggesting anything better.
Re:Security Concerns (Score:4, Informative)
The difference is current RAM needs to be maintained. Suspend to RAM doesn't help in a power outage and/or dead battery condition.
Otherwise yes, they're pretty much the same thing.
=Smidge=
Even better (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nitpicking, I know, but... (Score:0, Informative)
If I recall my signal processing terminology correctly, this is still a linear device, but it's time-varying. A resistor is linear and time invariant.
Re:Nitpicking, I know, but... (Score:1, Informative)
Technically, he predicted the existence of a non-linear memristor. A linear memristor is exactly the same thing as regular resistor.
Actually you are wrong, it has nothing to do with what you've said.
The resistance of a memristor changes with current and direction of the current. It will increase when it flows one way and decrease otherwise.
A resistor has always the same resistance(with a small margin of error)regardless the direction of the current and the current.
A linear memristor would be some memristor that would increase and decrease the resistance in a linear way that has nothing to do with resistors.
Information about... (Score:5, Informative)