memristors

  • HP ‘Rethinks’ The Computer

    Innovative HP machine may start to compute by end of 2016.

    Overlapping nanowires, with the memristor elements placed at the intersections. Integrated-circuit design is currently based on three fundamental elements: the resistor, the capacitor, and the inductor. A fourth element was described and named in 1971 by Leon Chua, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department, but researchers at HP Labs didn’t prove its existence until April 2008. This fourth element—the memristor (short for memory resistor)—has properties that cannot be reproduced through any combination of the other three elements.Overlapping nanowires, with the memristor elements placed at the intersections. Integrated-circuit design is currently based on three fundamental elements: the resistor, the capacitor, and the inductor. A fourth element was described and named in 1971 by Leon Chua, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department, but researchers at HP Labs didn’t prove its existence until April 2008. This fourth element—the memristor (short for memory resistor)—has properties that cannot be reproduced through any combination of the other three elements.When Hewlett Packard first unveiled plans to develop an entirely new computer structure at its Discover user conference in June, it outlined a development which potentially could deliver a much simpler and faster system than is currently available. This was echoed in a speech given by HP Labs Director Martin Fink at the Software Freedom Law Centre’s 10th anniversary conference in New York.

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