Introduction to a component called as memristor

Introduction to a component called as memristor

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The word memristor was formulated by combining ‘register’ and ‘memory’. The important feature of it is that it is capable of remembering the amount of current that passed through it. It can be changed into a single-component by varying the current passing through it, thus, finding its use in electronic circuits. A memristor can replace the flash memory in computers as they are cheaper, faster and provide more memory space. They are also capable of replacing RAM chips and hence, convert into a permanent memory storage device.

Introduction to a component called as memristor

A memristor is an electrical component that normalizes or restricts the flow of electrical current in a circuit and retains the information about the amount of charge that has previously flowed through it. This electrical component is vital because they are non-volatile or they can save memory even in the absence of power.

The original idea behind memristors when it was created by Professor Leon Chua in 1971 at the University of California, Berkeley, was a passive two-terminal, nonlinear electrical component that connected magnetic flux and electric charge.

Since that time, the definition or meaning of memristor has been widen to incorporate any form of non-volatile memory that is based on resistance-switching, which raises the flow of current in one direction and lowers down the current on the opposite direction. Memristors are one of few storage technologies that have been expected to substitute flash memory and are considered to be a sub-category of resistive RAM.

The first working memristor was built by scientists at HP Labs and since then researchers in many big IT companies have investigated how memristors can be utilized to build faster, smaller, low-power computers that don’t need data to be transferred between volatile and non-volatile memory.