Memristor Components
To accomplish this feat, we need high density components which can be stacked in three dimensions.
Silicon wafers are two-dimensional and even if we stack them, their power dissipation makes them
limited. Enter the memristor component. Also present is the nanotube.
The breakthrough in memristors is quite new but memristive components allow us to better model
nerves. The breakthrough in nanotubes is that they have been found in organic systems including
nervous systems.
memristor-memory
The four passive components of electronics are the resistor, capacitor, inductor and the memristor,
which was discovered only a few months ago. The concept
Memristors (from memory-resistors) are resistors whose resistance depends on their past. In that sense
they remember the past or, as an electronics engineer might put it, they store information.
So new are memristors that nobody has had much time to think about what they might be useful for.
That's changing quickly.
A couple of months back we saw how they could be used to make neural nets that mimic the "intelligent"
behavior of slime mould.
Now Tom Driscoll and buddies at the University of California, San Diego have shown how memristors
could work as low cost, high density memory.
It turns out that a thin film of vanadium oxide acts like a memristor when a current is passed through it.
At a certain critical temperature, the current triggers a phase change in the film, turning it from an
insulator to a metal-like conductor. And that significantly changes it's resistance in a way that can be
measured for hours afterwards. In effect, the resistor stores a single bit of information.
Driscoll calls it resistive random access memory or RRAM, in which information is stored in the form of
material resistance, which can be changed by an applied voltage .
Other substances, such as titanium oxide, also display similar memristive behavior which could be
adapted for memory related applications. And work is on going to characterize these.
Expect to hear a lot more about memristors this year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZAHG3COYYA
Phil Kuekes interview talking about memristors and fiber optics using different frequencies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUOekeiqihc
Next
To accomplish this feat, we need high density components which can be stacked in three dimensions.
Silicon wafers are two-dimensional and even if we stack them, their power dissipation makes them
limited. Enter the memristor component. Also present is the nanotube.
The breakthrough in memristors is quite new but memristive components allow us to better model
nerves. The breakthrough in nanotubes is that they have been found in organic systems including
nervous systems.
memristor-memory
The four passive components of electronics are the resistor, capacitor, inductor and the memristor,
which was discovered only a few months ago. The concept
Memristors (from memory-resistors) are resistors whose resistance depends on their past. In that sense
they remember the past or, as an electronics engineer might put it, they store information.
So new are memristors that nobody has had much time to think about what they might be useful for.
That's changing quickly.
A couple of months back we saw how they could be used to make neural nets that mimic the "intelligent"
behavior of slime mould.
Now Tom Driscoll and buddies at the University of California, San Diego have shown how memristors
could work as low cost, high density memory.
It turns out that a thin film of vanadium oxide acts like a memristor when a current is passed through it.
At a certain critical temperature, the current triggers a phase change in the film, turning it from an
insulator to a metal-like conductor. And that significantly changes it's resistance in a way that can be
measured for hours afterwards. In effect, the resistor stores a single bit of information.
Driscoll calls it resistive random access memory or RRAM, in which information is stored in the form of
material resistance, which can be changed by an applied voltage .
Other substances, such as titanium oxide, also display similar memristive behavior which could be
adapted for memory related applications. And work is on going to characterize these.
Expect to hear a lot more about memristors this year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZAHG3COYYA
Phil Kuekes interview talking about memristors and fiber optics using different frequencies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUOekeiqihc
Next
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