Download Memristor Memory Circuits

Memristor Memory Circuits
A non-volatile storage solution
Memristory –
a brief history
• The memristor was envisioned by circuit
theorist Leon Chua in 1971. Chua claims the
memristor is actually the oldest known circuit
element with its effects predating the resistor,
capacitor, and the inductor.
• Generalized as a fourth electrical component,
along with the resistor, capacitor, and the
inductor.
• Some researchers believe that human blood
and skin should be classified as memristors.
• It is currently being developed by HP, SK Hynix,
and HRL Laboratories and could possibly be
available commercially by the end of 2014.
• It is essentially a resistor, which implements electrical resistance as a
circuit element but with memory.
What is it?
• The memristor is a non-linear functional relationship between magnetic
flux linkage.
• Like an ordinary resistor, a memristor would create and maintain a safe
flow of electrical current across a device.
• Unlike a resistor, it “remembers” charges even when they lose power.
Which allows for better information storage.
How it works
• Depending on the direction of current flow through the
memristor circuit, the electrical resistance will either
increase or decrease.
• Memristors are nano devices that remember information
permanently, switch in nanoseconds, are super dense,
and power efficient. That makes memristors a potential
replacement for DRAM, flash, and disk.
• It is a thin double layer of titanium dioxide film placed
between electrodes.
A memristor is a pipe that
changes diameter with the
amount and direction of water
that flows through it. If water
flows through this pipe in one
direction, it expands (becoming
less resistive). But send the water
in the opposite direction and the
pipe shrinks (becoming more
resistive). Further, the memristor
remembers its diameter when
water last went through. Turn off
the flow and the diameter of the
pipe ”freezes” until the water is
turned back on. That freezing
property suits memristors
brilliantly for computer memory.
The ability to indefinitely store
resistance values means that a
memristor can be used as a
nonvolatile memory.
Advantages
• Memristors can retain memory states, and data, in power-off modes. Non-volatile
random access memory, or NVRAM, is pretty much the first to-market memristor
application we’ll be seeing.
• It can be scaled down to sizes much smaller than currently available allowing designers
to overcome modern Moore’s Law limitations. For example, nand flash has a minimum
limit due to memory cell disturbance and other degradation during read and write
operations. The thin film technology of the memristor changes the game by order of
magnitude and actually improves performance as it is scaled downwards.
• It is projected that we'll reach the end of our ability to scale RAM, flash, and disk in the
next few years. Fortunately for us the memristor is here to save the day. Memristors
have the power and speed of the DRAM cell and the (potential) lifetime of a hard disk.
Currently the memristor has a lifetime greater than flash, but they are working to
extend that. In five years memristors could completely replace DRAM and disk and
eventually CDs and DVDs. It is a universal non-volatile memory.
Advantages
• The memristor is a new architecture that allows the stacking of multiple crossbar
memories on top of each other. This allows multiple petabits of memory (1 petabit =
128TB) in one square centimeter of space. Consider 1 terabyte is equal to 128 DVDs or
250,000 4 Meg images. We are talking about a lot of power efficient storage in a
very little space.
• They can be used for logic -- they can be used as processors. This is very significant
because instead of sending data to the processor and then back again, which takes
time and energy, we could shuttle the processing code to the data -- which is smaller
and quicker.
• Using memristors for processing brings other potential changes. Instead of just two
states, on or off, as with transistors, memristors can represent many states. This
means we can create new types of computing models, we can also create analog
computers, which you don't program, but you let them learn. You can then replicate
the learning to other memristor analog computers.
Applications
• In the near term, the most obvious application for memristor technology is as a replacement
for Flash memory. “Memristor memory chips promise to run at least ten times faster and use
ten times less power than an equivalent Flash memory chip,”
• Memristors can retain information even when the power is off and are highly energy efficient.
This means that your laptop could boot up much faster and last longer on one charge since it
consumes less energy. Given the number and sophistication of apps running on smartphones,
this should also significantly extend the usable time between charges.
• Memristors fundamentally operate in a similar fashion as the biological synapses in the human
brain. Another potential application of memristor technology would be an 'artificial synapse' in
a circuit designed for analog computation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZAHG3COYYA
Conclusion: Memristor = Cylons
• http://againsttheodds.hubpages.com/hub/MemristorMemory-Circuits
• http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/hpmemristors/
• http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/storage/display/2012092
7125227_HP_and_Hynix_Cancel_Plans_to_Commercializ
e_Memristor_Based_Memory_in_2013.html
• http://highscalability.com/blog/2010/5/5/how-willmemristors-change-everything.html
• http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Data-Central/HP-andHynix-Bringing-the-memristor-to-market-in-nextgeneration/ba-p/82218