HP Labs Teams With Hynix to Make Memristors

[bebangs]

[citation][nom]Jerky_san[/nom]Huzah now maybe no one will have to pay the evil patent troll.. you know the one i mean @_@ evil rambus[/citation]
Rambus, instead of competing , is scheming as we speak.
Devising the most evil plan on how to make money out of this.

 

[dEAne]

Maybe this is the solution that unlike SSD will fail but maybe will retain data for a very long time.

 

[zak_mckraken]

@snotling : Even if you could store a variable and it's type on a single bit, the program would still have to access variable to know it's type. It's basically the same thing as declaring a Variant variable, but without having to test it. It saves memory and computing time, I'll admit.

And using raw data without knowing it's content or context is already possible... it's called binary reading! 😉

 

[eyemaster]

1's and 0's are easy to understand, but having a variance in between 1 and 0 makes things complicated. This is more like analog thinking and why AI has more chance to succeed that way. I can't even start to imagine the possibilities as I don't understand how we can program that stuff! But like the article said, it's not just about variances between 1 and 0, but also about what it can do as storage.

Wow, just wow. With it's properties, if it can run just as fast as today's memory and cpu's, this is some big news indeed.

 

[lamorpa]

People!: A bit is defined as, "a digit in the binary number system" Binary. BINARY. 1 OR 0. THAT'S IT. You cannot store anything but those 2 states. Anyone saying anything else has no idea what they are talking about.

And by the way, current silicon electrinocs are bi-state, but tri and quad state have existed in the past, but were found to be less efficient. All electronics are analog at the most basic level, it is just that, in binary systems, < some voltage is considered 0, and > than it is considered 1.

Please, get a basic high school level understanding of the topic before making comments. (particurlarly, @snotling, I've been sending around your, "Storing a variable with its type implicitly..." comment to the great amusement of many. You'd really couldn't have done better if you had started with, 'All your bits are belong to us..."

 

[saturnus]

[citation][nom]lamorpa[/nom]People!: A bit is defined as, "a digit in the binary number system" Binary. BINARY. 1 OR 0. THAT'S IT. You cannot store anything but those 2 states. Anyone saying anything else has no idea what they are talking about.[/citation]

You really haven't understood the concept of neither analogue computing nor how memristors work.

They are in principle a transistor that can store a variable resistance by reacting on the delta of current applied over it and the time the current is applied. It will have a maximum resistance state and a minimum resistance states. In between those two it can have any resistance, in principle an infinite number of states.

In practice what is done is taking for example a 16 bit signal which will be familiar to most as that's what is in the CD format. And like in CD you then perform Digital to Analogue conversion of that 16 bit signal and apply it over the memristor just like it would have been applied over your loudspeakers. The memristor will now have that resistance stored. So when a voltage is applied, the resistance will be measured, and fed to a Analogue to Digital converter which will convert it back to the digital 16 bit format again. Simple really. 16 bit stored in a single transistor. And no, the control logic is not more advanced than what is in current SDRAM which constantly have to measure voltage states so that it can refresh it.

But that's not all. A memristor could also perform direct calculations on the 16 bits stored within them, simple add and multiply functions like any normal logic circuit would do, except that here it does it on 16 bits in a single process, and with a single logic circuit. There's also no real need for cache as the result is automatically stored within it, so if sequential logic transforms is needed it can do that directly without the need to store it in cache first as a normal logic circuit would have to.

The 16 bit example is just taken because it's familiar, in principle there should be no problem getting 32 or even 64 bits signals stored with today's techniques. And who knows what tomorrow will bring, possibly 256 or 1024 bits?

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]Hupiscratch[/nom]Now we need just to postulate an question for 42. Maybe we will find it when we get to quantum computing.[/citation]
The answer is simple: Deep Thought was referring to itself.

OK, so 7x6 was discounted as the answer, but 7 is 6+1. If you convert the number of the beast 666 into 6*6+6, you get 42. The Beast is a giant computer that handles worldwide financial transactions, where your access code is "the mark of the beast" which must be presented in the same way that bank cards are used. Parallel that giant computer to universal scale, and you get something on the order of the computer Deep Thought.

So, Deep Thought is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

 

[Scott2010au]

[citation][nom]ares1214[/nom]I wonder what exactly HP has to do with this...Intel, AMD, G.Skill, Corsair, OCZ, maybe even Crapple all seem like something that fit this better. HP doesnt even make its own parts.[/citation]
Neither do G.Skill, Corsair, OCZ or Apple.