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Memristor Computing
HP is rapidly advancing in their research into memristors. Cnet and MIT just published a couple of articles on the new research from HP on memristors. Reading about just the known capabilities of them is impressive. When the methods of using them to process data (compute) as well as store it is worked out they have the potential to dramatically alter the capabilities of the computers we use.
A new discovery by HP could lead to faster, more powerful computers and other devices in the near future.
Hewlett-Packard's HP Labs research branch has discovered that the memristor, a new electric circuit developed by HP in 2008, has far greater potential than initially thought, the company announced on Thursday.
Previously seen mostly as a new type of storage similar to flash memory, HP found that the memristor can also perform its own logic. Such a discovery can pave the way for chips that can both perform calculations and hold data, potentially eliminating the need for a traditional core CPU.
HP plans new nonvolatile memory for 2013.
HP has begun testing samples of a new kind of nonvolatile memory based on memristors--circuit elements that are much smaller than the transistors used in flash memory. The company plans to introduce the first commercial memristor memory product in three years' time.
Memristors have been the subject of much interest because, in theory, they're capable of activity that's analogous to what happens in a synapse in the human brain. So far, however, all the experimental demonstrations of memristors have been accomplished by forcing them to behave more like transistors. Instead of switching between hundreds of states, these memristors have been made to switch between two states with a high and low resistance--a digital zero and one.
This week, in the journal Nature, Williams and colleagues reported a major step forward for memristor logic with the fabrication of circuits capable of full Boolean logic. The circuits are still digital, but Williams says his team has "shown that anything that can be calculated on silicon can be done with memristors," and in a smaller space. Demonstrating digital logic with the devices is an important first step toward more exotic computing, says Strukov.
The memristor circuits reported in Nature are also capable of both memory and logic, functions that are done in separate devices in today's computers. "Most of the energy used for computation today is used to move the data around" between the hard drive and the processor, says Williams. A future memristor-based device that provided both functions could save a lot of energy and help computers keep getting faster, even as silicon reaches its physical limits.
A new discovery by HP could lead to faster, more powerful computers and other devices in the near future.
Hewlett-Packard's HP Labs research branch has discovered that the memristor, a new electric circuit developed by HP in 2008, has far greater potential than initially thought, the company announced on Thursday.
Previously seen mostly as a new type of storage similar to flash memory, HP found that the memristor can also perform its own logic. Such a discovery can pave the way for chips that can both perform calculations and hold data, potentially eliminating the need for a traditional core CPU.
HP plans new nonvolatile memory for 2013.
HP has begun testing samples of a new kind of nonvolatile memory based on memristors--circuit elements that are much smaller than the transistors used in flash memory. The company plans to introduce the first commercial memristor memory product in three years' time.
Memristors have been the subject of much interest because, in theory, they're capable of activity that's analogous to what happens in a synapse in the human brain. So far, however, all the experimental demonstrations of memristors have been accomplished by forcing them to behave more like transistors. Instead of switching between hundreds of states, these memristors have been made to switch between two states with a high and low resistance--a digital zero and one.
This week, in the journal Nature, Williams and colleagues reported a major step forward for memristor logic with the fabrication of circuits capable of full Boolean logic. The circuits are still digital, but Williams says his team has "shown that anything that can be calculated on silicon can be done with memristors," and in a smaller space. Demonstrating digital logic with the devices is an important first step toward more exotic computing, says Strukov.
The memristor circuits reported in Nature are also capable of both memory and logic, functions that are done in separate devices in today's computers. "Most of the energy used for computation today is used to move the data around" between the hard drive and the processor, says Williams. A future memristor-based device that provided both functions could save a lot of energy and help computers keep getting faster, even as silicon reaches its physical limits.
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