An article in EETimes suggests that we may see a memristor-based memory prototype in development as soon as 2009. The memristor is claimed by many to be the theorized fourth passive circuit element, linking the fundamental circuit variables of charge and flux. This news may not sound that exciting to most computer geeks, but this new component could usher in a new era of computer memory by forming the basis of RRAM (resistive random-access memory).
Scientists at HP labs have finally confirmed that the memristor behaves as their theories predicted. The reason that the component will work so well for memory is that the process is nonvolatile and the bits themselves will only change after the CPU tells them to. The bits in current DRAM systems slowly fade out and require a refreshment every 50 nanoseconds.
[via /.]
this is not a hack
this is serious hi-sci-tech
i can’t wait for had to do their first post on dna based cpus
i can see the comments now
“since when has bacteria been a hack? whine whine”
great stuff keep it up
besides this not being a hack (unless well, convincing molecules to exhibit memory counts as a hack, which it might), what’s with the claim of 50 _nano_second refresh period? does the author even realise how small a nanosecond is, and that a memory could not possibly require to be refreshed every 50ns, because it would spend all its time refreshing, instead of, you know, memorizing? from the wikipedia article that this post links to, a sane value would be 64ms per row, though in certain cases it could be seconds or even minutes. the snr around here is going down fast *whine whine* *bitch* *whine*.
In the actual article, when they said 50ns, they meant 50ns access time, not refresh time. Since DRAM basically stores your data in a capacitor, and capacitors slow things down, it’s going to be difficult getting things faster than that without some better way of storing memory.
I’m no semiconductor researcher, but what exactly is the difference between the today’s MRAM designs and memristors? They sure sound similar ;P
Old news is old.
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