Breakthrough: A Math Model of a "Memristor"

May 15, 2008

Hewlett Packard Labs has announced that its researchers have proven the existence of what had been theorized as the fourth fundamental circuit element in electrical engineering.

In a paper published in Nature, researchers led by R. Stanley Williams presented the mathematical model and a physical example of a "memristor," or a memory resistor. Its unique feature is that it retains all of the information it has acquired.

"To find something new and yet so fundamental in the mature field of electrical engineering is a big surprise, and one that has significant implications for the future of computer science," said Williams. By providing a mathematical model for the physics of a memristor, the researchers have made "it possible for engineers to develop integrated circuit designs that could dramatically improve the performance and energy efficiency of PCs and data centers," he said.

Leon Chua of The University of California at Berkeley had theorized about this element in a paper published nearly 40 years ago. He argued that the memristor was a fundamental circuit element (the others being the resistor, capacitor, and inductor) whose properties could not be duplicated by any combination of the other three elements.

This breakthrough suggests the possibility of developing computer systems that have memories that do not experience loss, that do not need to be rebooted, that would consume less power, and that would associate information in a manner similar to that of the human brain. One immediate application could be the development of computer memory that replaces dynamic random access memory.

Source: Business World (May 1)