HP Creates First Hybrid Memristor Chip 155
An anonymous reader writes "HP researchers have built the first functioning hybrid memristor-transistor chip. Lead researcher Stanley Williams and his team built the very first memristor — the '4th fundamental element' of integrated circuits after resistors, capacitors and inductors — back in April. Memristors can remember their resistance, leading to novel electronic capabilities. The new FPGA circuit uses memristors to perform tasks normally carried out by (many more) transistors and is therefore smaller, more power efficient and cheaper to make, HP says. Memristors could also turn out to be a more compact, faster alternative to flash memory."
Re:Well that was faster than expected... (Score:4, Insightful)
Spice model (Score:3, Insightful)
Is there a spice model available?
From the article (Score:5, Insightful)
"Williams says. Still, he predicts that memristors will arrive in commercial circuits within the next three years."
It seems fast because nobody was talking about these things for the last 30 years. It's only because of technological advances in circuit printing and general computing that we can make these things and integrate them without having to develop a lot of additional technology. The transistor is very old but only after developing a lot of supporting tech have we been able to shrink them down to fit billions in a processor. That same tech can already be applied to memristors. We don't need to wait decades before we can shrink a memristor down to practical levels for ICs.
Re:**** SPOILER ALERT **** (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well that was faster than expected... (Score:5, Insightful)
More than 2 states are now possible. (Score:5, Insightful)
Binary was chosen earlier in computer work for it could represent accurately a digit representive such as 1001 equals 9. Also magnetic core memory could hold only the two states.
With memristors (once they are perfected) can have multi-state such as trinary (base 3) or decinary (base 10) eliminating all of the conversion that is neccessary in the present binary system that require cpu cycles. 123 in the decinary system represents 123 where in binary it would be 1111011 and need to be converted in order to be meaningful.
For instance I have heard for those studying DNA that using base 12 has certain benefits in directly expressing information. Perhaps this will open a whole new arena of possibility that previously could only be simulated in binary.
The mind can imagine many new possibilities if the memristor actually is.
Re:size? (Score:4, Insightful)
the plots appear to be generated by a mathematical model rather than a laboratory experiment
This is what I would say "NEXT!" for, but to each their own.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How does it replace multiple transistors (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)