Technology
MEMRISTOR
From electrons to ions, could revolutionize electronics
Memristor is predicted to change the complete future of PC hardware. It is a pioneering
electronic module that consists of memory resistor, two terminal electrical components related
to the magnetic flux linkage as well as electric charge.
According to HP Labs Fellow R. Stanley
Williams, “The memristor holds its
memory longer. It’s simpler. It’s easier to
make — which means it’s cheaper — and
it can be switched a lot faster, with less
energy.”
For a long time, electrical engineers were
using the three basic components to
design circuits – inductors, capacitors, and
resistors. In 1971, a physicist, Prof. Leon
Chua, Department of the University of
California Berkeley, conceptualized the
existence of a fourth primary element in
the electronic circuit, besides the three
that were already in use at the time. Chua
argued in his paper that, the memristor
has properties that cannot be duplicated
by any amalgamation of the other three
elements.
The introduction of the fourth component
made the circuits exponentially more
complex. Prof. Chua believed that in
future, an extra component could be
constructed to join the resistor, the
capacitor and the inductor.
He named it "memristor", deriving from
the words memory and resistor, as it
carries properties of both memory
element having memory history and
resistor. The memristor can replace flash
memory and D-RAM.
However the implementation took almost
four decades to conceptualize, as the first
memristor was built by Hewlett Packard in
2008.
Today, this innovation is believed by many
researchers to be revolutionary in the field
of computing.
This is believe to open up new
innovations, engineers could, for example,
develop a new kind of computer memory
that would complement and eventually
replace the generally used dynamic
ELE Times | 48 | November, 2016
random access memory (D-RAM).
Computers using conventional D-RAM lack
the ability to retain information once they
loss power. When power is restored to a
D-RAM-based computer, a slow, energyconsuming "boot-up" process is necessary
to recover data stored on a magnetic disk
required to run the system.
Memristor-based computers wouldn't
require that process, using less power and
possibly increasing system resiliency and
reliability. Prof. Chua believes the
memristor could have applications for
computing, cell phones, video games anything that requires a lot of memory
without a lot of battery-power drain.
This could be used to considerably
improve facial recognition technology or
to provide more complex biometric
recognition systems that could more
effectively restrict access to personal
information.