[Robotgroup] memristor

[Brian Booth]

Whoa!

I feel like Neo when he swallowed the red pill.

I thought it sounded kinda crack potty until I realized it was the guy
behind the theory of the memristor.

The core of memristor operation is hysteresis, some other quotes.  If
your not going to read the article at least get this:

A memristor works by virtue of hysteresis, whereby its rate of change
accelerates as it moves from one state to the other--"on" to "off," or
vice versa. Hysteresis has been explained away by current circuit
theory as an anomaly, according to Chua and Williams, whereas its
existence is, in fact, a fundamental property of passive circuitry.

"Hysteresis is a tell-tale manifestation of the fourth circuit
element--the memristor," said Chua. "And Stan Williams is very smart
to have realized that if you cannot explain something properly, then
there must be a better explanation."

For instance, electrical engineers have known that titanium dioxide
changes its resistance in the presence of oxygen--this is the
principle behind titanium dioxide oxygen sensors--but they could not
explain why.

"They traced its curve, and knew it contained hysteresis, but because
they could not explain it, they could only design the simplest of
devices using it--sensors," said Chua. "But now that it has been
explained, they will be able to design all types of new circuitry
using it. This is a wonderful development."

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 11:10 AM, Shane Geiger <sgeiger at ncee.net> wrote:
> Various quotes from:
> http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207403521&printable=true
>
>
>
> "Electronic theorists have been using the wrong pair of variables all
> these years--voltage and charge. The missing part of electronic theory
> was that the fundamental pair of variables is flux and charge," said
> Chua. "The situation is analogous to what is called "Aristotle's Law of
> Motion, which was wrong, because he said that force must be proportional
> to velocity. That misled people for 2000 years until Newton came along
> and pointed out that Aristotle was using the wrong variables. Newton
> said that force is proportional to acceleration--the change in velocity.
> This is exactly the situation with electronic circuit theory today. All
> electronic textbooks have been teaching using the wrong
> variables--voltage and charge--explaining away inaccuracies as
> anomalies. What they should have been teaching is the relationship
> between changes in voltage, or flux, and charge."
>
>
> "If we push current through it hard and fast, it acts like a digital
> device, but if we run current through it gently and slowly it acts as an
> analog device," said Williams. "We are already designing new types of
> circuits in both the digital and analog domains using our crossbar
> architecture.
>
> The memristor behaves like a non-linear resistor with memory--a small,
> compact and highly energy-efficient means of creating a memory device.
> But Chua and Williams claim it is also a new type of circuit element
> that should enable the creation of new devices never before imagined.
>
>
> "The memristor is our salvation, because it works better and better as
> you make it smaller and smaller," said Chua. "The era of nanoscale
> electronics will be enabled by the memristor. This is not just an
> invention, it is a basic scientific discovery. It has always been
> there--we just had to face these nanoscale problems to realize its
> importance."
>
>
> --
> Shane Geiger
> IT Director
> National Council on Economic Education
> sgeiger at ncee.net  |  402-438-8958  |  http://www.ncee.net
>
> Leading the Campaign for Economic and Financial Literacy
>
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