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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"

#31

Post by smoyer »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #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…

But HP would never attempt to maximize for profit right? The memristor is going to be its gift to humanity in the same way they've kept ink-jet and toner prices right above their costs.

I think that statement about spending more (time or money?) studying the market than doing research is pretty sad.

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

#32

Post by taliesinb »

Aficionados of weird co-incidence might be interested to learn that the researcher who discovered the memristor, Leon Chua, also has a daughter who is rather famous for having written "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Chua). Leon Chua is also an enthusiast of Stephen Wolfram's NKS, and spoke at one of the early NKS conferences.

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

#33

Post by wtallis »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #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…

As bad as that sounds, I don't think that HP is currently making much money off flash memory, so they still have an incentive to get the memristors to market soon. They just have chosen to make enough concessions to secure the cooperation of a DRAM manufacturer so that HP doesn't have to build the whole memristor business themselves. (The way HP's been managed in recent years, I wonder if they would be able to get and hold on to enough capital to mass produce memristors and bring them to market without help.)

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

#34

Post by mattdeboard »

pixie_ wrote: post #21

"There’s a lot more money being spent on understanding and modeling the market than on any of the research.” - what the shit

I'm more surprised at how surprised so many people seem to be at this. This isn't a college student building a music-sharing app here. This is a huge corporation preparing to deliver disruptive technology. Naturally they're doing enormous amounts of market research.

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

#35

Post by wmf »

sliverstorm wrote: post #28
MichaelApproved wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it will still not be available for your PC to replace your RAM" RAM? I thought this was a replacement for HDD and SSDs.

What are standard HDD bit cell sizes? I can't seem to find specs.

It doesn't matter because magnetic platters and silicon chips have totally different manufacturing cost per area.

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

#36

Post by pbharrin »

“Development costs at least 10 times as much as research, and commercialization costs 10 times as much as development. So in the end, research — which we think is the most important part — is only 1 percent of the effort.”

This just means that it's easy to get something working in a lab but it's hard to make a product that you can mass produce. In non-voitile memory a flash replacement is always 2 years out, just like cold fusion is always 10 years out.

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

#37

Post by tsotha »

pbharrin wrote: post #36

“Development costs at least 10 times as much as research, and commercialization costs 10 times as much as development. So in the end, research — which we think is the most important part — is only 1 percent of the effort.” This just means that it's easy to get something working in a lab but it's hard to make a product that you can mass produce. In non-voitile memory a flash replacement is always 2 years out, just lik…

That was my take, too. I've been hearing about commercial memristors for at least a couple decades now, and they're forever on the cusp of showing up on my desktop.

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

#38

Post by tubbo »

pixie_ wrote: post #21

"There’s a lot more money being spent on understanding and modeling the market than on any of the research.” - what the shit

Memristors have "been around" in laboratory settings for a few years now. The research is done, now it's time to figure out how to market it. Seems pretty reasonable to me. This is actually very exciting to me, because the concept of a memristor, that of a large amount of small devices storing chunks of a larger piece of memory, is supposedly the same or a similar way that your brain's memory works.

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

#39

Post by nnethercote »

tsotha wrote: post #37
pbharrin wrote: post #36

“Development costs at least 10 times as much as research, and commercialization costs 10 times as much as development. So in the end, research — which we think is the most important part — is only 1 percent of the effort.” This just means that it's easy to get something working in a lab but it's hard to make a product that you can mass produce. In non-voitile memory a flash replacement is always 2 years out, just lik…

That was my take, too. I've been hearing about commercial memristors for at least a couple decades now, and they're forever on the cusp of showing up on my desktop.

Nobody even built a memristor until 2008. I think you're remembering wrongly.

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

#40

Post by tsotha »

nnethercote wrote: post #39
tsotha wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my take, too. I've been hearing about commercial memristors for at least a couple decades now, and they're forever on the cusp of showing up on my desktop.

Nobody even built a memristor until 2008. I think you're remembering wrongly.

That didn't stop them from claiming it would be on my desktop.
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