Memristor the new fundamental circuit element. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 23, 2011, 06:56:45 am
content: Dear EEVbees:--I am pretty sure that Leon Chua will soon be getting the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the forth fundamental circuit element, the Memristor. According to Stan Williams of HP Labs, the "Crossbar" (a memristor array) is "the fundamental structure for the future of electronics."--A quickie (6 minutes) version of the Stan Williams talk on memristors. Dr. Williams says transistors can be replaced by memristors in a ratio of 10 to one, I.E. 10 transistors can be replaced by one memristor:--The long version. Finding the Missing Memristor - R. Stanley Williams. Showing examples of people(over the last 50 years) tripping over the memristor and not knowing what they had. It is interesting that this device only obtains at the nano scale, with switching times of one nanosecond and memory retention time of geological time scale. No, I am not kidding. This talk is well worth the time.:--And below (the lovable) Dr. Leon Chua speaking at the Symposium on Memristor and Memristive Systems Symposium (Part 1 108 minutes). You can find the rest of the parts on the Web.See below the wiki article on memristors, which puts all the facts in one place, where you can find them.:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor--Indeed this mind boggling technology is likely to knock everything into a cocked hat. Your comments and caveats are humbly solicited. I would especially like to hear from EEs and designers who have been working in fields that are going to be effected.--We will know HP Labs is getting serious when they send Dave a Hybrid CMOS memristor chip to use as a FPGA. I suppose it is too much to ask for them to sunset the BGA as well. Best RegardsClear Ether

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2011, 07:27:10 am
content: To quote somebody famous (not sure who), the question you have to ask is, "What's the catch?"These things have been known about since 1971. So where are they, and why has nobody heard of them?There has to be something that prevents them being useful.

author: sub
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2011, 08:08:55 am
content: Quote from: IanB on August 23, 2011, 07:27:10 amSomeone published the theoretical terminal characteristics in 1971, but no-one knew whether they existed in reality until someone at HP fabricated one in 2008.http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/processors/how-we-found-the-missing-memristorhttp://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/memristor-inside

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 23, 2011, 08:11:46 am
content: Dear IanB:--Indeed, it may turn out that there is a catch somewhere.--With regard to your statement that:"These things have been known about since 1971. So where are they, and why has nobody heard of them?"--I meant to say that people have been tripping over examples of memristive action (in the last 50 years) with out knowing what they had encountered. None have been produced yet, except for laboratory work. So that easily explains where they are. Barring the noted exception they are not anywhere yet because they are not yet in production.--I do not think I would call Dr. Leon Chua, a "nobody":Fellow and a professor in the electrical engineering and computer sciences department at the University of California, Berkeley, which he joined in 1971. Considered to be the "father of nonlinear circuit theory and cellular neural networks", he is also the inventor and namesake of Chua's circuit and was the first to conceive the theories behind, and postulate the existence of, the solid-state memristor. (from the Wiki article on Dr. Chua)--Nor do I think I would refer to Dr. R. Stanley Williams as a nobody:Stanley WilliamsDirector, Advanced Studies Laboratory, Hewlett-PackardDr. R. Stanley Williams joined Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in 1995 to found the Quantum Science Research group. He is now an HP Senior Fellow and Director of the Advanced Studies Laboratory, which has over 80 scientists and engineers working in areas of fundamental science and engineering of strategic interest to HP.He was a Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Labs from 1978-80 and a faculty member (Assistant, Associate and Full Professor) of the Chemistry Department at UCLA from 1980 ? 1995. His primary scientific research during the past thirty years has been in the areas of solid-state chemistry and physics, which has led to his current research in nano-electronics and photonics and their applications to technology. ... He has been awarded >60 US patents with >40 more pending and he has published >300 papers in reviewed scientific journals. (From his bio. athttp://www.nanotech.net/speaker/stanley-williams)--I guess I should have made the point that these gentlemen are not fly-by-night vacuum cleaner salesmen, right up front. I regret any inadvertent confusion I my have caused by this omission. I guess I was relying too much on the readers actually reading (or viewing) the material before responding. When I get such a quick response, I can only conclude that "Speedreading" is involved.--Remember, at one point in time, nobody had heard of Shockley, Brattain and Bardeen and their transistor, yet it proved to have moderate usefulness. Best RegardsClear Ether

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2011, 03:15:01 pm
content: Quote from: SgtRock on August 23, 2011, 08:11:46 amDear SgtRock:I don't know quite what sent you off down this path, but you appear to have suffered a slight failure of English comprehension.I didn't describe the eminent persons you listed as nobodies, I said "nobody has heard of memristors". That is to say, memristor technology does not find a prominent place or even a small place in the consciousness of the world population at large, neither the lay population nor the engineering and technical population.Will memristors ever become more than an intellectual curiosity and find a practical place in real electronic devices? We shall have to wait and see. There is a long path from the laboratory to commercial reality, and an even longer path to commercial success.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 23, 2011, 05:04:30 pm
content: Dear IanB:--My point was that the learned Doctors have heard of the memristor. I was hoping you would latch onto the fact that either one would qualify as somebody. Given the amount of wiki pages, articles and videos on the Web, I think it is safe to say that millions of people (each of whom qualifies as somebody) have heard of the memristor. By the time a new device gets is own rather long wiki page, I think it is safe to conclude that somebody has heard of it.--I said:"Indeed this mind boggling technology is likely to knock everything into a cocked hat."--Notice I said "likely", not "it is a done deal".--In your first post you stated:"There has to be something that prevents them being useful."--And, pray tell, just why does there have to be "something that prevents them being useful." As I stated previously "Indeed, there may be a catch" but why does there have to be. If one did not know better one could conclude that you thought these devices had been around for years, and are just now catching up to the fact that the first one has yet to leave the laboratory.--In your second post you stated:"That is to say, memristor technology does not find a prominent place ... in the consciousness of the world population"--Well, no s**t Sherlock. I think if I had said "it's a done deal and this technology is prominent in the consciousness of the world population", I would then have expected the above refutation of my statement.--In your second post, you further stated:"Will memristors ever become more than an intellectual curiosity and find a practical place in real electronic devices? We shall have to wait and see. There is a long path from the laboratory to commercial reality, and an even longer path to commercial success.--Uncanny and elementary! Buy that detective a deerstalker hat and a calabash pipe. He has discerned the obvious from a comprehensible mass of obvious facts. In as much as the first one has yet to leave the lab., did I already say that? Their practicality has yet to be demonstrated, but their reality has already been proven.--When I said:"Your comments and caveats are humbly solicited."--I was looking for something more specific than just poo-pooing unproven technology as unproven technology. We all pretty much know how to whistle that tune already. I was wondering if any one knowledgeable in the field could foresee any likely technical problems of a somewhat more specific nature.--If you were to actually watch the 6 minute video, I think you would find that Dr. Williams and HP Labs are rather far along in this process. Many of the papers have already been peer reviewed. I believe that this device is more substantial that the typical "vapor widget" as seen on TV.--I find this technology new and interesting, and hope most of our gentle readers do no mind my pointing it out.--Did I mention the first one has yet to leave the laboratory? If you would read my post about "Proton Boron 11 Fusion" you will find many fresh opportunities to refute assertions that were never made. Best RegardsClear Ether

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 23, 2011, 06:43:50 pm
content: Dear Sub:--Thanks a lot for posting those articles. I knew of their existence but was unable to find them. Do you know if either one is the same as the article published in Nature 2008. I will read, and enjoy. Thanks AgainClear Ether

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 23, 2011, 11:49:00 pm
content: --Unfortunately UncleV probably does not know exactly what IanB was referring to because as you can see from his Private Message to me on Aug. 19:"Congratulation: You have won an all expenses paid one way trip to my ignore list. To do so within so few posts could even be the all time record. The maxim was and always will be think before you type, a concept clearly beyond your intelect and abilities.Feel free to rant there as incoherently as you already do! Feel free also to send as many abusive replies as you see fit, I do not mind I will never have to read them or any of the other tripe you are capable of regurgitating.Indeed you were the weakest link!"--He does not see my posts. "Notice the spelling of the word intellect. By the way that was a particularly polite post for UncleV. He has expressed interest in seeing me burn to death. He gets angry at people that are on his "ignore" list, by ESP I guess.--When he said he was putting me on his ignore list, I naively assumed he meant to ignore me. Alas no such boon obtains. Now by starting a post about the memristor, I am "hijacking the forum" I wonder if UncleV might know where to find a "rolling doughnut".--I encourage everyone to review the material I presented at the beginning of this thread. It is exciting and fascinating. The technology is in its infancy but it just may be as important as the transistor for computing applications, and possibly other applications as yet unforeseen.--The Spectrum articles posted earlier by sub are also very interesting. Best RegardsClear Ether

author: sub
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2011, 06:41:41 am
content: Quote from: SgtRock on August 23, 2011, 06:43:50 pmIf you refer to "The missing memristor found" by Dmitri B. Strukov et. al. then no, though "How We Found The Missing Memristor" was written by one of its authors in late 2008.

author: Hypernova
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 07, 2011, 05:51:38 pm
content: Quote from: Squonk on October 07, 2011, 03:23:27 pm"We’re running hundreds of wafers through the fab,"Holy shit they are years earlier than I expected.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 08, 2011, 02:08:00 am
content: Speculation time - could it be that HP pulled out from the consumer PC market to focus more on this tech? [edit: Squonk beat me to it.]

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 08, 2011, 08:04:00 am
content: Dear Squonk and AntiProtonBoy:--Currently it would seem that HP intends to stay at arms length from any new Fab installations. They currently have a deal with Hynix (formerly Hyundai Electronics), second largest memory chip maker, with Fabs on three continents. See the two links below; (1 Hynix Wiki page and (2 HP press release regarding production of memristor devices:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hynixhttp://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2010/100831c.html--And finally a short and mostly positive article about Stan Williams, Hynix and HP from BSN:http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2011/10/7/hp---hynix-plan-resistive-ram-intro-in-summer-of-2013.aspx"Three weeks in the lab will save you a day in the library every time" Stanley Williams, HP LabsBest RegardsClear Ether

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 08, 2011, 12:45:11 pm
content: Watched all the video presentations, fascinating stuff.