Electromagnetism

Memristor: The Future of electromagnetism

Prior to the existence of Memristor , in the field of electromagnetism, there existed only three basic electrical components namely, capacitor , inductor and resistor.

Memristor commonly called as memory resistor, was first envisioned by physicist Leon Chua , in 1971. He described the component to be a Non-linear, passive, two terminal electrical component , which now joins the family of components of an electrical circuit.

                                                           

Electrical symbol of a memristor

A  memristor functions by relating the magnetic charge and electrical flux linkage.And proves to be a non volatile memory component , whose electrical resistance varies.

The present electrical resistance of a memristor can be calculated on the basis of the amount of charge that has flowed through it in the past and in which direction.

It has a non-volatile memory, when the power source is turned off , the memristor remembers its most recent resistance until it is turned on again.

The memristor is currently under development by various teams including Hewlett-Packard, SK Hynix and HRL laboratories.

Appplications:

Memristor can be used in , Nanoelectronic memories, computer logic and neuromorphic /neuromemristive computer architectures.The future of memristors can envisioned by the assumptions , that it can replace the Flash, SSD, DRAM, SRAM type of memories in the upcoming future.

First Production:

First memristor was build by Hewlett Packard in 2008, which looks forward to deliver the first memristor based computer in 2020.

Transistor Vs Memristor

Currently the main component of the electronic chips is transistor, which was developed in 1947.Now , with the advent of memristor , the former is  supposed to be replaced by the more powerful component memristor in the coming future of electromagnetism. The basic differences between a transistor and a memristor can be summarised as follows:

Transistor	Memristor
Transistor work with the flow of  electrons.  In transistor , once the power is cut off, all the information is lost.  Limited within the boundaries of binary codes  Mostly composed of silicon layers	Memristor couple electrons with ions, or electrically charged atoms. Memristor can remember the amount of charge flowing through it.  Memristor can have multi- levels. You could have multiple states, lets say zero , one , half, one quarter , one third, and so on.  Memristor don’t require a silicon layer, and different substances can be used as a substrate

Merits of Memristor over Transistor:

Memristors can lead to the evolution of computers with a bulb like switch on and switch off property , as soon as we switch on the computer, it can be seen to retain the previous state, with no loss of unsaved data . Means no data loss on abrupt power cut off.

The escape of memristors from the boundaries of binary codes ,  gives it a  very powerful perspective of how computers may develop in future. That would allow us to create computers more reminiscent to human brains , which  ultimately may lead to the creation of human like artificial intelligence.

Memristors don’t require a silicon layer, and different substances can be used as a substrate. Hence this may lead to the creation of a new class of microchips, which may be embedded in everyday items such as clothes , windows , coffee cups etc.

Simply called a machine it uses , electrons for processing, photons for communication and ions for storage.

Memristors can operate at lower power consumption, with a faster speed and a higher volume density of information than anything we have based in silicon microchip transistor.