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:Security Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
True, it's probably not a good idea to have ALL your memory as this stuff, but why not have say, the core OS files (The ones that wont contain any important, private data) stored in this type of memory for that near-instant-on effect? In theory, the OS could stay in RAM and just do a quick verification check to make sure it's not damaged/corrupted in some way (and since it's ALREADY in RAM, it should be lightning quick) and then reload any files that have been, then boom, you're at your desktop in a matter of seconds.
Plus, I doubt it'll actually be as fast as regular RAM anyway, that would be too good to be true, so chances are we'll just see this as a companion to good ol' DDR3/4/WhateverExistsAtTheTime.
It would certainly benefit the likes of embedded devices, set-top boxes and such that are starting to really take the piss with their multi-minute startup times.
Flash Killer (Score:5, Insightful)
If this stuff actually works as promised, it will be way faster and longer-lived (in terms of write cycles) than flash. 50nS is pretty slow compared to DRAM, but for flash replacement it should be pretty zippy. Especially if there's no need to do block erase and rewrites.
Nitpicking, I know, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Technically, he predicted the existence of a non-linear memristor. A linear memristor is exactly the same thing as regular resistor.
Re:Security Concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Security Concerns (Score:2, Insightful)
In theory, the OS could stay in RAM and just do a quick verification check to make sure it's not damaged/corrupted in some way
Reminds me of letting Col. Clink check on the prisoners. Letting the OS "integrity check" itself is an amusing thought and a very, very bad idea.
then boom, you're at your desktop in a matter of seconds.
We get this pipe dream every few years - people talking about the "instant-on" computer. Sleep modes, wake modes, hibernation, etc.
I have an idea: grow a few seconds' worth of patience.
It would certainly benefit the likes of embedded devices, set-top boxes and such that are starting to really take the piss with their multi-minute startup times.
Hmmm... I have an Xbox360, DVD player, DVD/vcr Recorder combo unit, Xbox, PS3, Wii, PS2, and a computer. The only one with a "multi-minute" startup time is the computer. And honestly, that stays on most of the time anyways since its primary purpose is as a NAS for the Xbox to feed media content from (gotta love XBMC).
Other than the computer, my TV is the longest-warming-up item. And that's because it's an lcd projection screen, and has to warm the bulb up.
Where are these "multi-minute startup" devices you're referring to? Let me guess, you grew up on Elmo and your generation has the attention span of a goldfish.
For reference's sake: older CRT televisions/monitors can take as much as a few minutes to fully warm up, and generally 30-45 seconds to wake and warm up. Projectors and most big-screen TV's, same deal. Want to know how long it used to take to fast-forward through the ads in a VHS movie? Actually, it's shorter than trying to get past the adcrap the movie studios are putting on DVD's these days.
And that's not even mentioning the fact that the MafiAA companies are illegally abusing the FBI warning code to prevent you from skipping/fast-forwarding past the aforementioned adcrap.
Low cost? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Flash Killer (Score:3, Insightful)
(Ideally, you'd have battery-backed "smart RAM" that can complete transactions into memristor storage even if disconnected from a main computer and power supply. Then you'd have something that was not only fast but proof against most idiots. Not all, as idiots are so inventive, but most.)
Re:Still not holding my breath (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Security Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless, of course, you're waking a computer out of hibernate mode... then it's pretty much all about disk I/O throughput.
If this were possible, it could basically become unnecessary to actually *shut down* your computer.
More importantly, if you suddenly lose (or switch off) power it might be possible to simply pick up where you left off - with some minor firmware tweaks to get the hardware running again without wiping RAM.
=Smidge=
Re:Security Concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not a matter of patience, it's a matter of eliminating a needlessly slow bottleneck on a system.
To expand upon the GP's point, if you could take 100GB of this stuff and slap it into your memory space you'd never, really, have to hit the hard disk for applications again. This does two things:
- Frees up your DRAM for things that actually change frequently.
- Frees up your hard disk which should be holding things that need long term storage, not execution.
Pair it with 8GB of DRAM or so and I can't see any problems. Sure you'd have to design filesystems to support it, but some already exist with the basic ideas implemented.
Not quite... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Security Concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
I am the only one thinking of the nightmare that making suspend default in Vista has caused? Get it to work at the software level first please.
Re:Security Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
"Managing to shave 5 seconds off boot? Not so much so, especially since it offers no other concrete advantages once you're booted"
What if you're a kernel, or bootloader developer? Saving 5 out of 20 seconds boot time means you're spending 25% less time waiting while you're testing. And that was just off the top of my head!
"we're back to having to load that memory check routine from another source"
That's really not that big a deal.
"of the most popular pipe dreams of these ideas? Do we have a set of checks for each file in there? Where did we store it? How long will it take to check it? Are we recalculating it constantly on the fly...?"
Um... ZFS? End to end checksumming? Pipe dream? Just because you've not heard of it being done, doesn't make it magic.
"might as well just keep its system state on a pair of revolving images on the hard disk anyways" ...because harddrives don't fail or need to be checked?
Re:Security Concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
Managing to shave 5 seconds off boot? Not so much so, especially since it offers no other concrete advantages once you're booted.
If boot times can be dropped to a couple of seconds people will be less likely to leave their computers on for hours while away from their desks, just for the convenience of it.
Not to mention that it won't only be boot time, but possible load times of other software and files that is improved as well.
Re:Still not holding my breath (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but that is bullshit.
CBRAM, PRAM and RRAM are generally based on two terminal devices that are written at a high current and read at a low current.
For all of those there are two ways of arranging them into an array: A passive matrix with diodes or an active matrix with transistors. The former is slightly simpler to make but suffers from scalability issues.
The reason why HP made a passive matrix is simply because they don't own a fab capable of producing dense memory. This is nothing but a research toy. Their prototype does not even include diodes, meaning that it won't work in a full matrix.
It is important to realize that HPs "memristor" is actually a fairly conventional oxide based RRAM device. Many other groups have reported similar devices in the past.