HP Labs Teams With Hynix to Make Memristors

Huzah now maybe no one will have to pay the evil patent troll.. you know the one i mean @_@ evil rambus

Nothing is perfect. Everything that has benefits also has flaws. Here's to hoping those flaws are ignorable.

so...

Is this the beginning of the end. I.E. Skynet?....

Future in making

That sounds insane. The more you add the more memory and computational power you get. I'll wait until I see it but this could open the doors to quantum computing.

ReRAM starts with an "R", like "R"amBus. Surely, a patent suit will follow...

I really wonder how this could possibly used. Every variable can be summarized in 0's and 1's. Being able to store different values in one bit could reduce memory usage dramatically, but I can't see how it would offer anything new.

I might be missing something, but at any rate, innovation is always good!

The potential for memristors are enormous. They're basically in this form a variarable resistance transistor, and as such in principle an analogue device. It has innumerable potential uses but the first uses will probably as the name implies be in memory products.

Eg. it's a 1 transistor replacement for cache memory, cutting cache memories chip-realestate by 6 to 8 times while being both faster and consume less power.

It can also directly go into SDRAM and double it's capacity by not needing a capacitor to sustain the charge over the transistor while still being just as fast a on-chip cache.

But the real potential in memory use lies in that it in principle can store an infinite number of bits in a single transistor but a practical limit could be anywhere from 8 to 256 bits in a single transistor. All it takes is a high precision DA/AD converter to drive it. Tb single chips should be well within reach.

Speculating even further, it could potentially revolutionize computers as those memritors in principle also being analogue trasistors and therefore could make todays operations in 1/32th to 1/256th the chip real estate since it can perform everything with a single "bit".

Memristor is made from a thin film of Titanium dioxide. With this tech our CPU's cache can be logic circuitry as well as logic circuitry cache. This could indeed push performance many times over.

Most of this is very old tech ideals. The resistance switching of titanium dioxide was described in the 1968 by F. Argall.

It's still all about memory savings. Let's assume you could store any ASCII code on a single bit. Instead of 1's and 0's, you'll be able to store A's B's, etc. Not only will you save a byte, because your data will be written on a single bit, but that bit will also be able to hold 256 different values! The memory saving would be 8 x 256 = 2048.

Imagine, a full 1080p movie taking as little as 5 megs! It's astonishing!

But, it's still memory savings... it's not "new" per se.

By 2013 The first products using memristor technology are expected to become available. Nonvolatile memory will be the first product so at best 5 or more years till any CPU integration unfortunately.

The father of this technology tho is clearly the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal winner of 1986 Bernard Widrow. In 1960 Bernard Widrow develops a 3-terminal device called a "memistor" a new circuit component forming the basis of a neural network he called ADALINE.

NOOOOO!!
The possibilities seem so endless, yet with HP involved it will likely get screwed up...

[citation]The memristor technology can store and retrieve values outside the standard 1's and 0's, which opens up many new possibilities outside of traditional computing – such as artificial intelligence. That will take some time, but the base technology is ready.[/citation]

What? Seriously, WHAT?? Can they store numbers that are angry or green or something? This statement's author (I assume not necessarily the article's author) has a fundamental misunderstanding of science in general. Do they have any idea what current electronics can 'store' and how it is accomplished? Who didn't catch this one?

This kinda makes me want to buy stock in HP, which is something I never thought would happen. Maybe I'll just buy some Hynix instead.

I wonder what exactly HP has to do with this...Intel, AMD, G.Skill, Corsair, OCZ, maybe even Crapple all seem like something that fit this better. HP doesnt even make its own parts.

This is something I'm hoping to see more of now. I'm excited to see what they can do with this.

Storing a variable with its type implicitly.

if you do some programming, you'll know that defining a variable requires to define the type (example: integer) and value (example: 42)

then the value is stored at an address allocated by the OS for its use by the program.

The program uses it in context through its subroutines (example: answer to life, the universe and everything)

a memory that can store "other" than base 2 values, I speculate could implicitly use the raw data as defined without need for context. (in the previous example: metaphysical integer to the solve universe = 42)

because the context is stored with the value, intelligent processes would be easier to develop and less complex subroutines would be needed to use simple values.

The fact that it can take a value outside of 0 or 1 itself is revolutionary for computing!

Now we need just to postulate an question for 42. Maybe we will find it when we get to quantum computing.

Aren't we all supposed to be working on it as we speak?

Memristors: One time we had YES or NO answers. Now we can add MAYBE to your life too!

Gotta love this.

fuzzy inside!
just the ability to have more than 0 and 1 is awesome. now they added the ability to retain the memory without power available?
just hope this will get cheap enough to replace the current technology used by flash disks.

Rambus, instead of competing , is scheming as we speak.
Devising the most evil plan on how to make money out of this.

Maybe this is the solution that unlike SSD will fail but maybe will retain data for a very long time.

@snotling : Even if you could store a variable and it's type on a single bit, the program would still have to access variable to know it's type. It's basically the same thing as declaring a Variant variable, but without having to test it. It saves memory and computing time, I'll admit.

And using raw data without knowing it's content or context is already possible... it's called binary reading!

1's and 0's are easy to understand, but having a variance in between 1 and 0 makes things complicated. This is more like analog thinking and why AI has more chance to succeed that way. I can't even start to imagine the possibilities as I don't understand how we can program that stuff! But like the article said, it's not just about variances between 1 and 0, but also about what it can do as storage.

Wow, just wow. With it's properties, if it can run just as fast as today's memory and cpu's, this is some big news indeed.

People!: A bit is defined as, "a digit in the binary number system" Binary. BINARY. 1 OR 0. THAT'S IT. You cannot store anything but those 2 states. Anyone saying anything else has no idea what they are talking about.

And by the way, current silicon electrinocs are bi-state, but tri and quad state have existed in the past, but were found to be less efficient. All electronics are analog at the most basic level, it is just that, in binary systems, < some voltage is considered 0, and > than it is considered 1.

Please, get a basic high school level understanding of the topic before making comments. (particurlarly, @snotling, I've been sending around your, "Storing a variable with its type implicitly..." comment to the great amusement of many. You'd really couldn't have done better if you had started with, 'All your bits are belong to us..."

You really haven't understood the concept of neither analogue computing nor how memristors work.

They are in principle a transistor that can store a variable resistance by reacting on the delta of current applied over it and the time the current is applied. It will have a maximum resistance state and a minimum resistance states. In between those two it can have any resistance, in principle an infinite number of states.

In practice what is done is taking for example a 16 bit signal which will be familiar to most as that's what is in the CD format. And like in CD you then perform Digital to Analogue conversion of that 16 bit signal and apply it over the memristor just like it would have been applied over your loudspeakers. The memristor will now have that resistance stored. So when a voltage is applied, the resistance will be measured, and fed to a Analogue to Digital converter which will convert it back to the digital 16 bit format again. Simple really. 16 bit stored in a single transistor. And no, the control logic is not more advanced than what is in current SDRAM which constantly have to measure voltage states so that it can refresh it.

But that's not all. A memristor could also perform direct calculations on the 16 bits stored within them, simple add and multiply functions like any normal logic circuit would do, except that here it does it on 16 bits in a single process, and with a single logic circuit. There's also no real need for cache as the result is automatically stored within it, so if sequential logic transforms is needed it can do that directly without the need to store it in cache first as a normal logic circuit would have to.

The 16 bit example is just taken because it's familiar, in principle there should be no problem getting 32 or even 64 bits signals stored with today's techniques. And who knows what tomorrow will bring, possibly 256 or 1024 bits?

The answer is simple: Deep Thought was referring to itself.

OK, so 7x6 was discounted as the answer, but 7 is 6+1. If you convert the number of the beast 666 into 6*6+6, you get 42. The Beast is a giant computer that handles worldwide financial transactions, where your access code is "the mark of the beast" which must be presented in the same way that bank cards are used. Parallel that giant computer to universal scale, and you get something on the order of the computer Deep Thought.

So, Deep Thought is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.