HP Discovered Fourth Type Of Memory Circuit
Scientists at Hewlett-Packard said on Wednesday they discovered a fourth basic type of electrical circuit Memristors that could lead to a computer you never have to boot up.
Basic electronics theory teaches that there are three fundamental elements of a passive circuit–resistors, capacitors and inductors. The idea was postulated in a seminal 1971 paper in the IEEE Transactions on Circuit Theory by professor Leon Chua at the University of California (Berkeley), but their first realization was just announced today by HP. Now, a team at Hewlett-Packard led by Stanley Williams has proven that ‘memristance’ exists.
“This new circuit element solves many problems with circuitry today — since it improves in performance as you scale it down to smaller and smaller sizes. Memristors will enable very small nanoscale devices to be made without generating all the excess heat that scaling down transistors is causing today,” said Chua.
Williams compares the property to water flowing through a garden hose. In a regular circuit, the water flows from more than one direction. But in a memory resistor, the hose remembers what direction the water (or current) is flowing from, and it expands in that direction to improve the flow. If water or current flows from the other direction, the hose shrinks.
The memristor behaves like a non-linear resistor with memory — a small, compact and highly energy-efficient means of creating a memory device. But Chua and Williams claim it is also a new type of circuit element that should enable the creation of new devices never before imagined.
Source: PC Magazine
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