Memristors -- Re-Write the EE Texts

[dtengineering]

As Alan mentioned, if you read it with an AC current then you will have put a net zero current flow through it. (You slightly increase the resistance, then slightly decrease it, setting it back where it was.)

Also it is likely that the device may require significantly more current flow to set the value than it does to read the value.

I am sure, however, that the uses of this device will expand beyond merely memory in ways that we cannot, at present, imagine.

Jason

[Richard Wallace]

OK, so I am a curious geek. I had to know more, so I got the article: Nature 453, 80-83 (1 May 2008)

It is available online if you have a Nature subscription, or for a fee. If your school library has a subscription that may be your easiest route.

The gist is that for two-terminal circuit elements a non-linear relationship between electric charge and magnetic flux gives rise to a hysteretic relationship (read: memory) between current and voltage. The HP investigators who authored the Nature article cited above have realized an experimental memristive device using a thin film of titanium dioxide doped with oxygen-poor impurities; the missing oxygen acts as a mobile positive charge. The effect increases as the mobility of the dopant increases, and as the length of the film decreases -- so nanoscale devices look the most promising for potential applications.

Alan's comment re: ac probing is consistent with the examples given by the authors of the Nature article.

[edit]

Originally Posted by JesseK

... there are much broader implications for this. I wonder how HP will release/license this.

HP filed two US Patent Applications in April 2006 and February 2007, which became public last month. They are US2008/0090337 and US2008/0079029, respectively. Both describe electrically actuated switches based on the concepts described in the Nature article.

I interpret these US Patent Applications as a sign that HP, a company well known for technology leadership, anticipates that commercially viable devices will be made using these ideas.[/edit]