HP invents something genuinely brilliant
APRIL 30TH 2008 might well go down in electronics history. Megaboffins at the HP Labs in Palo Alto have conjured up something that was theorised back in 1971 (by Leon Chua at UC Berkeley), a fourth basic element of electronics: the memristor (a non-linear resistor with memory).
A memristor works by altering its resistance between two states (read like a 0 or a 1), and retains the state when powered down. However, they do this very fast, DRAM-fast. This technology complements current resistors, inductors and capacitors that we all know and love but has been, until the development of nanotechnology, impossible to build.
This is where Stanley Williams, Director of HP’s Quantum Science Research and henceforth known as Stan the Man, enters. Stan the Man and his team of researchers published their work in Nature magazine this Wednesday, demonstrating the mathematical model and producing a physical example of the memristor.
To create the memristor, Stan’s crew sandwiched a film of Titanium Oxide in between two slivers of platinum – all this just 5nm wide, according to the article in Nature. It sounds simple, but getting there wasn’t easy, states Stan.
This technology has the potential to provide the speed of DRAM with the storage ability of non-volatile memory, gradually replacing both. In fact, memristors have tremendous potential in just about everything electronic and could potentially usher in a new age of computing and storage, real-time and power efficient, that would allow any sort of memory-based product to be instant-on/instant off with no loss of data or power consumption.
Servers, for starters, would benefit massively from the power savings and data speeds, but even the simplest of consumer electronics stands to make some serious gains from this.
Since RAM would effectively become non-volatile, the risk of data loss through power failure would become almost negligible – whether we’re talking servers or personal computing.
This could also spell doom for HDD, DRAM and Optical disk tecnologies – one at a time - although there is no set timeframe for this technology to reach our computers.
Stan the Man’s QSR unit is already responsible for several groundbreaking technologies (and royalty earners for HP). It wouldn’t surprise us if Stan and his crew got slapped with one of these, this does represent a paradigm shift in the accepted theory of electronics, after all. µ
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More alien technology.
Going to Days of Ripping Expensive Electronics apart & libraryenizeing poor parts, such mess, put on Osiloscope shows some odd properties. ?Christ Presbyterian gives off thumping voltage on first application of power, Why? Some chemicals do impossible, like fall upward or change states in mid course.
Here likelyhood of usefulness is low & very limited. From large wobbler of sputter V. resistor to nice clean pop,pop,pop is all I really see, NO useful applications, as signal variation only lasts minute amount of time.BTW Röntgen Died from own invention, Xrays. BUMMER.Yet If this gets to that point I'd be surprised.
TS drashek
Another article that I saw mentioned that this was not just a two-state device, but could also be employed as an analog storage or analog switch. In other words, not just storing a 0 or 1, but also any value in between. And could be used to make artificial neurons for example.

But, like the laser before it, it'll be about twenty years before it even starts to become widely employed for practical purposes. Coincidence that the patent term is about 20 years? I don't think so...
To Old_Old: me thinks you have May 1st confused with April 1st.
If I understand the implications of this, power may be switched on and off without implication for what's happening on the computer. Therefore, no need for lengthy start-up, shut-down proceedures ever again! YAY!
Will beat hibernate hands down; close the lid on the laptop and it all goes power-free; open it and it's instantly right where you left off!

I'm dreaming of recounting tales to my grandchildren of having to wait for ages when wanting to start anything, just to initialise everything-
I suspect I must be dreaming of a future without windows if I think there'll be no more need to restart things...
Titanium and platinum? That's going to pretty expensive, even at 5nm a cell. Make it in cheap silicon... then you have something.

On another note, what is with these rambling, delusional comments like Old_Old's. They're unreadable, and not even entertaining.
"To create the memristor, Stan’s crew sandwiched a film of Titanium Oxide in between two slivers of platinum"

Using Titanium and Platinum will not make for a cheap device... Isn't platinum nearly $2000/ounce? Hopefully they can make many such devices with an ounce of Platinum.
I think this technology will push technology into every area of life allowing affordable technology with mission critical level capability.
Where are we getting all this platinum from? At 30 times the rarity of gold, I don't think we'll see any wide-spread production regardless of how thin the sheets of it are.
.The applications of this new technology could be limitless if applied right. I was reading specs of this tech are amazing it read the crew would be able to put 2 terabytes in a 2 square centimeter area. It could replace the HDD and ram and eliminate bottlenecking of either.
This is pretty cool if it could actually replace both RAM and HDD.. so the more space you got free, the more potentiall for RAM you have.. too bad my computer isnt made with this tech or I would have 1 Tb of usable RAM ;)

Smelly fart cheese cake grinding. Like falling sideways in war. Much love pissing in wind like up river. Cherrished horse manure in dark places feed the minds of youth....

WTH is that robot spammer talking about.... BTW nice to see that there is finally a change in electronics that is this ground breaking.... no need for hard drives .... on less thing to go wrong or to pay for :D

Cheers
I thought transistors or maybe diodes were also a "fundamental" circuit element ???????????????
Mebbe also something called "conductor"???????
Sure, a conductor is Obvious, however, try to do a circuit without a Conductor and you'll find you cannot! Hence it is fundamental component eh!
5nm is pretty darn small you'll need a lot more nanotech to make stuff like that on a "large" scale eh heh heh heh!
I cracks me up.
I may be forced to remember about last night and how expensive. At least the crapper has a mechanical flush.

You Couldn't Be Bad
Magneto Was Mad!
Titanium Too!
And The Crimson Dynamo
He Just Couldn't Cut It No More 
We Swung All Over That
Long Tall Bank In The Main Street
On a Double-Decker Bus
At A Quarter To Three
So We Went Out
Magneto And Titanium Man . . .
And The Crimson Dynamo
Came Along For The Ride
You Were Involved In A Robbery
That Was Due To Happen
That's What You're On About
Oh come on, people. This is a research proof-of-principle device. Researchers use platinum for such things because it's chemically inert, so they don't have to worry about unexpected reactions.

I'm certain somebody is trying this on other metals right now, and filing their patent claims tomorrow. Hopefully the researchers who really invented this have it all sewn up, and didn't have to sign it away. They deserve both the credit and the monetary rewards.

More likely, they'll get the same as the guys who invented artificial diamonds at GE, or the Blue Laser.



I nearly gagged on the PR spin...a fourth basic element of electronics? Resistors, capacitor, inductors, and...memwhat? And you need expensive exotic materials to make it, not just wires and air? You spin me right round baby.

Pt isn't just rare, it's already in massive demand for catalytic converters for cars. The price has risen 500% since 2002!

The tech sounds awsome, the materials not so much so..
@Jeffy:
The laser didn't sit dormant for 20 years because of patents.... The patent wasn't settled until the 1980's, and then companies had to start paying royalties on lasers that they had been producing without need for a license or royalties for literally decades.
ok, lets see if my maths are right....lol

if it is 2 layers of platinum at 2nm thick (1nm titanium oxide) thats 4nm, or

0.0000004 cm^2

multiplied by lets say a "foil" 1cm^2

then multiply that tot eh density of platinum: 21.45 g/cm3

thats 0.00000858g

multiplied by 

($1940/troy oz, over 31.1034768 troy to gram)

thats

$0.000535155 per memristor

does that work out?
You had me, right up until the phrase "paradigm shift". What the hell is that? Did you copy/paste this from HP's PR?
Good HP PR. The new research lab VP gonna rip millions $ rewards on this. Have not seen anything technologically impressive from HP for a while, except the huge profits from very expensive inks.
I think we all know this is too good of a technological innovation/invention to ever be used. We will probably never see it.
Mike, the person that goes under the name Drashek (read the "signature" in the message, not the Old_Old) is bane of many forums like this one. He goes under the name of amanfromMars on The Register for example. Fill forums with his drivel. Maybe time to ban him. Not because he is mentally disturbed, but because it's really annonying to run into his crap when reading the comments. Takes a moment before one realizes that this one has to be skipped. Sure, what he does is not unlawfull, but this is a community, you can be baned for annoying other members. And if enough people would ask the editor very nicely..
Writing as AC, as I don't want him to start polluting my forums.
So, I'll run over to the auto parts store to purchase some of those Bosch platinum tipped spark plugs to make into 5nm cells onto a chip. :) LOL 

Seems that the cost of a few grains of platinum isn't all that expensive after all. Just finding it will be the question. So stop buring the stuff away in your petro engines folks! 

Please ban the weirdo ... sometimes i give myself a challenge to understand Drasheks drivel but then i realize how screwed up it really is.

Don't really care if its a spam bot or a depraved lunatic but i agree its very annoying