Apr 30, 2008

meet the memristor

Leon Chua's dream finally came true:
Chua showed that his predicted device could remember the last voltage applied to it, and how long it had been applied. He dubbed the property "memristance" but the memristor was quietly forgotten because it was unclear how it could ever be built.

But Williams' team has now done just that, using nanoscale circuits including molecules of the active ingredient of sunscreen – titanium dioxide....

He is now working to find which materials make the best memristors, and why it has only been seen so far in nanoscale devices. Williams then wants to attempt to build memristor-based memories, which will store information as resistance values and therefore need no power to hold on to the data.
The future is rosy...
Chua, now close to retirement, is thrilled at the finding.... "We can now expect many new unconventional applications, including super-dense memories and brain-like computing chips."
...because the sun's about to set on humanity. It was fun while it lasted.

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