The Memristors Are Coming

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--The memristors are coming. Just as Flash Based SSDs are getting cheap and cheerful, they may be bowled over by an upstart. See below a very interesting presentation by Martin Fink of HP (after an introduction by Meg Whitman at about 3:50) of a completely new unified CPU and Memory architecture based on memristor technology, called the Machine. Comments by the knowledgeable, and speculation by the less knowledgeable like myself, are solicited.

 
 
--Head of HP Research Labs Dr. R. Stanley Williams recounts how his team came up with the idea of using titanium oxide for functional, practical, memristor arrays, bringing to life the ideas of Leon Chua. This is a very interesting lecture for those of you who have not seen it already. It is called Finding the Missing Memristor.



Fairly recent lecture by lovable Dr. Leon Chua, the man who divined the existence of the 4th class of passive components called memristors some 40 years ago which started the ball rolling. People had seen memristor like behaviours in experiments before, but had not really known what they were dealing with. Dr. Chua explains this history in a most interesting way, with very little math.  Even the equations require only first year Bonehead Calculus to comprehend.

 

"The language of experiment is more authoritative than any reasoning: facts can destroy our ratiocination—not vice versa."
Alessandro  Volta  1745  -  1827

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[rolycat]

Not too impressed by the 'Discover' presentation - or the presenters.

Meg Whitman seemed to have just returned from a course where she was told to use lots of arm movements, even if it didn't bear any relation to what she was saying, and Martin Fink was reduced to begging for applause.

Robert X. Cringely posted a withering critique here.

The memristor itself looks like a fascinating and revolutionary device.

Stanley Williams is obviously brilliant and passionate about his work - it's interesting to note that according to their records he is no longer a director at HP - merely a researcher.

Below is a more recent version of his lecture on "Finding the missing memristor" which incorporates the results of another two years of research and development. It's twice as long, but well worth the effort:

[SgtRock]

Dear Rolycat:

Thank you so much for finding the updated video for us. I will be watching it immediately. Now that the weather is getting cooler here in Orlando my female cat Stormy has been hiding in the grocery bag and chasing invisible mice all day. Cheers.

"I'll have the Alfalfa sandwich, and the smashed yeast"
Woody Allen 1935 -

Best Regards
Clear Ether