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HP Memristors Will Reinvent Computer Memory "by 2014"

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Re: HP Memristors Will Reinvent Computer Memory "by 2014"

#2
Seems an optimistic timeline to 'reinvent' memory. They have perhaps forgotten about 'bubble memory' which was going to 'eliminate disks' in 1982.

From the article : "As reported by The Register, at a recent conference in Oxnard, California, HP’s Stan Williams said that commercial memristor hardware will be available by the end of 2014 at the earliest."

So basically we'll get to see real devices perhaps at the end of 2014 (I'm guessing closer to 2017 but we'll see) And we need a couple of years of building/using/repairing them before we see wide spread design wins, then another year before 'memristor' enabled devices hit the market and are or are not competitive.

That said, I'm rooting for them to be successful, flash is in a bad way at the moment with feature size being a hard limit on cell lifetimes.

Re: HP Memristors Will Reinvent Computer Memory "by 2014"

#3
post #2

Seems an optimistic timeline to 'reinvent' memory. They have perhaps forgotten about 'bubble memory' which was going to 'eliminate disks' in 1982. From the article : "As reported by The Register, at a recent conference in Oxnard, California, HP’s Stan Williams said that commercial memristor hardware will be available by the end of 2014 at the earliest." So basically we'll get to see real devices perhaps at the end of…

Bubble memory was doing just fine until a Nobel-winning physics breakthrough allowed the existence of high-density hard drives. If memristors do as well as bubble memory, there will have to be a serious fluke for it not to replace everything on the market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_memory#Commercializatio...

Re: HP Memristors Will Reinvent Computer Memory "by 2014"

#4
post #3
post #2

Seems an optimistic timeline to 'reinvent' memory. They have perhaps forgotten about 'bubble memory' which was going to 'eliminate disks' in 1982. From the article : "As reported by The Register, at a recent conference in Oxnard, California, HP’s Stan Williams said that commercial memristor hardware will be available by the end of 2014 at the earliest." So basically we'll get to see real devices perhaps at the end of…

Bubble memory was doing just fine until a Nobel-winning physics breakthrough allowed the existence of high-density hard drives. If memristors do as well as bubble memory, there will have to be a serious fluke for it not to replace everything on the market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_memory#Commercializatio...

Hey, be nice to MRAM, it's useful stuff. It has horrible densities, but its as fast and reliable as you could please. I've certainly used it in applications where there wasn't anything else that could foot the bill.

Re: HP Memristors Will Reinvent Computer Memory "by 2014"

#6
post #4
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bubble memory was doing just fine until a Nobel-winning physics breakthrough allowed the existence of high-density hard drives. If memristors do as well as bubble memory, there will have to be a serious fluke for it not to replace everything on the market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_memory#Commercializatio...

Hey, be nice to MRAM, it's useful stuff. It has horrible densities, but its as fast and reliable as you could please. I've certainly used it in applications where there wasn't anything else that could foot the bill.

Me too. Though it's more expensive than flash memory, it can support a much higher number of erase cycles.

Re: HP Memristors Will Reinvent Computer Memory "by 2014"

#7
post #3
post #2

Seems an optimistic timeline to 'reinvent' memory. They have perhaps forgotten about 'bubble memory' which was going to 'eliminate disks' in 1982. From the article : "As reported by The Register, at a recent conference in Oxnard, California, HP’s Stan Williams said that commercial memristor hardware will be available by the end of 2014 at the earliest." So basically we'll get to see real devices perhaps at the end of…

Bubble memory was doing just fine until a Nobel-winning physics breakthrough allowed the existence of high-density hard drives. If memristors do as well as bubble memory, there will have to be a serious fluke for it not to replace everything on the market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_memory#Commercializatio...

Ah thanks for the memories (I was at Intel when they rolled up the bubble memory team). But if the Wikipedia page can be trusted, its a good example of the timeline of a disruptive technology. So 10 years from first devices to a chance to really disrupt everything. That would make 2018 the year to watch for memristor memory.

Re: HP Memristors Will Reinvent Computer Memory "by 2014"

#9
> Historically, electrical circuits were crafted with three basic building blocks: the capacitor, the resistor, and the inductor. But in 1971, University of California at Berkeley professor Leon Chua predicted the existence of a fourth: the memristor, short for memory resistor.

> Then, in May of 2008, HP announced that it had actually built a memristor, thanks to HP Labs Fellow R. Stanley Williams and others working in the company’s research arm.

Here's a great presentation from R. Stanley Williams[1], via prior discussion at HN[2].

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKGhvKyjgLY&sns=em

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3088739

Re: HP Memristors Will Reinvent Computer Memory "by 2014"

#10
> “Our partner, Hynix, is a major producer of flash memory, and memristors will cannibalise its existing business by replacing some flash memory with a different technology,” he said. “So the way we time the introduction of memristors turns out to be important. There’s a lot more money being spent on understanding and modeling the market than on any of the research.”

Surely if they wait too long purely for profitable reasons the market will punish them by someone else beating them to it?

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