Application of Memristors

Resistor, Capacitor and Inductor make up some of the basic elements in any circuit system. Memristor or a memory resistor is described as a resistor which can store data. This characteristic of the memristor is the reason it is most sought after for use in memory related systems. [6] The concept of memristors was first theorized by Prof. Leon. O. Chua in 1971. It wasn’t until Stanley Williams invented the crossbar latch in 2008 that the scientists realized the memristor could be made possible. It was observed that the switches in the crossbar latch had the same characteristics as that of the memristor which was described in 1971 by Prof. Chua. [4]

Memristor as a basic circuit element has created a lot of interest because of its ability to realize RRAM (Resistive Random Access Memory). It also opened up a whole new field of electronics and nanotechnology with their applicability to neuro-morphic systems. [1] For years scientists have been trying to duplicate the actions performed by the human brain. With the help of memristors they might actually become a reality. The memristor is still in the developmental stages. One problem faced with the memristor is the scaling issue. Also, the economic factors have to be taken into consideration. The initial cost of production is high but later on the mass production rates are cheaper than the current costs of manufacturing a memory device. Not much is known about the limitations of memristors as the boundaries of the memristor haven’t been determined yet. One limitation however is the design issues related to the memristor. It has to be designed keeping in mind the ever changing technology trends and thus has to be flexible.

Memristors can behave as both a gate and a latch. Thus two different devices would not be required to do a job that can be done by one. This significantly reduces the area of the system. It is because of this property that memristors are being considered as a replacement to Flash memory and

References: [1] N. Gergel-Hackett et al. “Memristors with Flexible Electronic Applications” Vol. 0018-9219, 2011 IEEE 100, No. 6, June 2012, pp: 34- 49. [2] Y. V. Pershin and M. Ventra, “Practical Approach to Programmable Analog Circuits with Memristors” IEEE transactions on circuits and systems, 1857(2010), pp: 157- 170 [3] Wikipedia contibutors, “Memristor” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor [4] R. C. Johnson, “Will memristors prove irresistible?” EE-Times, issue-1538, http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4076910/-Missing-link-memristor-created-Rewrite-the-textbooks [5] S. Shin et al. “Memristor applications for programmable analog IC’s” Nanotechnology, IEEE Transactions on Volume: 10 , Issue: 2 Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/TNANO.2009.2038610 Publication Year: 2011 , pp: 266 – 274 [6] R. Tetzlaff1 and T. Schmidt “Memristors and Memristive circuits-an overview” Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/ISCAS.2012.6271557 Publication Year: 2012, pp: 1590 – 1595 [7] R. Tetzlaff and A. Bruening “Memristor Technology in Future Electronic System Design” Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE), 2012 Publication Year: 2012, pp: 592 [8] C. Yakopcic et al.”Fabrication and Testing of Memristive Devices” Neural Networks (IJCNN), the 2010 International Joint Conference on Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/IJCNN.2010.5596755 Publication Year: 2010, pp: 1 – 4 [9] A. S. Oblea et al. “Silver chalcogenide based Memristor devices” Neural Networks (IJCNN), The 2010 International Joint Conference on Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/IJCNN.2010.5596775 Publication Year: 2010, pp: 1 – 3 [10] X. Wang and Y. Chen, “Spintronic Memristor devices and applications” Seagate Technology Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE), 2010 Publication Year: 2010, pp: 667 – 672