HP introduced the first working hybrid transistor memristor

Hewlett-Packard has made a real breakthrough in the field of nanotechnology by presenting its first working copy of a transistor hybrid memristor at the recent opening of the Memristor and Memristor Systems conference. Although the first reports about the successful creation of a memristor came from HP laboratories at the beginning of the year, only now they decided to tighten the veil of secrecy from the development.

According to a statement by researchers from the company's laboratories, memristors are designed to replace existing transistor technologies on the path to improving the performance of microchips. They can be used less when the problem of available or free space becomes particularly acute, without actually reducing the power of the computing system, and in the same proportions of semiconductors per square centimeter, the memristor gives a huge head start in almost all parameters (capacity, speed, power consumption) now existing technologies.

I think no one will be surprised by the fact that the current implementation of the memristor's idea went far from the theory proposed by Professor Leon Chua back in 1971. Since, in the development of HP, the operation of the device is ensured by chemical processes occurring in a thin film of titanium dioxide (one of the layers of which is slightly depleted of oxygen, and oxygen holes migrate between the layers under the action of an applied voltage), the invention relates to the field of nano-ionics .
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The only dimly lit moment so far is the possibility of using memristors in graphic and central processors. The very concept of the device involves the creation of a cheaper, more capacious and effective flash memory, along with the new generation of RAM. But analysts today dubbed the technology "4 basic element of the chain" and say that Moore's law will continue to retain its force. Let me remind you: many skeptics believe that after 2009-2010 the statement about “doubling the number of transistors on a chip every 24 months” will lose its force, because now microchip manufacturers have to face enormous difficulties in production - the current rate of 45nm is almost the ceiling of existing technologies production. And it is precisely in this act that a memristor comes on the scene, which, according to the most optimistic forecasts, will take 20 years to reach the “memristor computer” stage.

Technologyreview via Slashdot