What is memristance?

Memristance is a property of an electronic component. If charge flows in one direction

through a circuit, the resistance of that component of the circuit will increase, and if charge
flows in the opposite direction in the circuit, the resistance will decrease. If the flow of
charge is stopped by turning off the applied voltage, the component will 'remember' the last
resistance that it had, and when the flow of charge starts again the resistance of the circuit
will be what it was when it was last active.

How is memristance measured?

Memristance is measured by the electrical component memristor. The way a resistor
measures resistance, a conductor measures conduction, and an inductor measures
inductance, a memristor measures memristance. An ideal memristor is a passive twoterminal electronic device that expresses only memristance. However it is difficult to build a
pure memristor, since every real device contains a small amount of another property.

Why is memristance important?

As the size of circuits moves towards nano-scale, memristance must be taken in to account
in circuit models in order to simulate and design circuits properly.

When was memristnace discovered?

Memristnace has been reported in publications dating back to the early 1960s, but the
researchers werent aware what they were seeing. They observed and reported unusual
hysteresis in current-voltage plots of various devices and circuits based on many different
types of materials and structures.

Who first predicted memristance?

Memristance was first predicted by Professor Leon Chua in his paper MemristorThe
missing circuit element. In this paper, Prof. Chua proved a number of theorems to show
that there was a 'missing' two-terminal circuit element from the family of "fundamental"
passive devices: resistor, capacitor and inductor, or elements that do not add energy to a

circuit. He showed that no combination of resistors, capacitors, and inductors could

duplicate the properties of a memristor. This inability to duplicate the properties of a
memristor with the other passive circuit elements is what makes the memristor
fundamental. However, this original paper requires a considerable effort for a non-expert to
follow. In a later paper, Prof. Chua introduced his 'periodic table' of circuit elements. This was
a visually pleasing illustration that we borrowed and modified for our Nature paper on
finding memristors.

What types of applications could memristors have?

There are two types of applications for memristive devices.
The first is for a type of non-volatile random access memory. Such a memory is useful in
that it would never forget the data that it stores when the power is turned off. NVRAM
made with the types of memristor materials that are currently being studied by many groups
around the world could be a strong competitor to the flash memory market in about five
years.
The second type of application is as an 'artificial synapse' in a circuit designed for analog
computation. Prof. Chua himself pointed out the connection between the properties of his
proposed memristor and those of a synapse in his earliest papers, and he has performed a
lot of research in the area of neural computing. We also think that this is a very interesting
and potentially valuable research direction.

How would you describe a memristor?

A common analogy to describe a memristor is similar to that of a resistor. You can think of a
resistor as water flow through a pipe. The water is the electrical charge, the pressure at the
input of the pipe is the voltage, and the rate of flow is the electrical current. Just was with a
resistor the water flow is faster if the pipe is shorter and/or it has a larger diameter. This
relates to a memristor in that you can look at it as water flow through a pipe. The pipe,
however, expands or shrinks when water flows through it. If water flows through the pipe in
one direction, the diameter of the pipe increases, thus enabling the water to flow faster. If
water flows through the pipe in the opposite direction, the diameter of the pipe decreases,
thus slowing down the flow of water. If the water pressure is turned off, the pipe will retain it
most recent diameter until the water is turned back on. Thus, the pipe does not store water
like a bucket (or a capacitor) it remembers how much water flowed through it.

1) Can Memistor replace computer's system physical memory? If yes then what
difference would it make to the system?

2) Is it volatile or non-volatile memory? how much can it hold? what is the

maximum a system can support?
It can be consider more of a non-volatile memory. It can replace volatile memory making
computer more energy efficient.
3) If this technology was innovated in April 2008 (i.e. missing link found) why is
not being widely applied in personal computers, seeing that the PC world has a
reputation of embracing technology change fairly quickly?
There are no real barriers it depend on the manufacture when this new technology go to to
public market.
4) Could you for the sake of the more non-expert audience how exactly a
memristor works in greater detail as a resistor with memory?

The memristor changes electrical resistance when current is introduce to the

circuit. This is an improve compare to a resistor what applied a steady level
of resistance.

What is memristance?

Memristance is a property of an electronic component. If charge flows in one direction through a circuit, the
resistance of that component of the circuit will increase, and if charge flows in the opposite direction in the circuit, the
resistance will decrease. If the flow of charge is stopped by turning off the applied voltage, the component will
'remember' the last resistance that it had, and when the flow of charge starts again the resistance of the circuit will be
what it was when it was last active.

Why is memristance important?

It turns out that memristance is becoming stronger as the feature sizes in circuits are getting smaller. At some point
as we scale into the realm of nanoelectronics, it will be necessary to explicitly take account of memristance in our
circuit models in order to simulate and design electronic circuits properly.

Have people seen memristance before?

Yes, we are aware of over 100 published papers going back to at least the early 1960's in which researchers
observed and reported unusual 'hysteresis' in their current-voltage plots of various devices and circuits based on
many different types of materials and structures. In retrospect, we can understand that those researchers were

actually seeing memristance, but they were apparently not aware of it.

What is a memristor?

An ideal memristor is a passive two-terminal electronic device that is built to express only the property of
memristance (just as a resistor expresses resistance and an inductor expresses inductance). However, in practice it
may be difficult to build a 'pure memristor,' since a real device may also have a small amount of some other property,
such as capacitance (just as any real inductor also has resistance).

What is an analogy for a memristor?

A common analogy for a resistor is a pipe that carries water. The water itself is analogous to electrical charge, the
pressure at the input of the pipe is similar to voltage, and the rate of flow of the water through the pipe is like electrical
current. Just as with an electrical resistor, the flow of water through the pipe is faster if the pipe is shorter and/or it has
a larger diameter. An analogy for a memristor is an interesting kind of pipe that expands or shrinks when water flows
through it. If water flows through the pipe in one direction, the diameter of the pipe increases, thus enabling the water
to flow faster. If water flows through the pipe in the opposite direction, the diameter of the pipe decreases, thus
slowing down the flow of water. If the water pressure is turned off, the pipe will retain it most recent diameter until the
water is turned back on. Thus, the pipe does not store water like a bucket (or a capacitor) it remembers how much
water flowed through it.

Who first predicted the existence of memristance and memristors?

Prof. Leon Chua had just moved to the Electrical Engineering Department of UC Berkeley when he published his
seminal paper, "Memristor - The missing circuit element." IEEE Trans. Circuit Theory CT-18, 507-519 (1971). In this
paper, Prof. Chua proved a number of theorems to show that there was a 'missing' two-terminal circuit element from
the family of "fundamental" passive devices: resistor, capacitor and inductor (e.g. elements that do not add energy to
a circuit). He proved that no combination of nonlinear resistors, capacitors and inductors could duplicate the
properties of a memristor. The most recognizable signature of a memristor is that when an AC voltage is applied to
the device, the current-voltage (I-V) plot is a Lissajous figure (the curve formed by combining two oscillations that are
perpendicular to each other). The most commonly observed I-V trace is a 'figure 8', or a 'pinched loop' for which the
current is zero when the voltage is zero. This inability to duplicate the properties of a memristor with the other
passive circuit elements is what makes the memristor fundamental. However, this original paper requires a
considerable effort for a non-expert to follow. In a later paper, Prof. Chua introduced his 'periodic table' of circuit
elements. This was a visually pleasing illustration that we borrowed and modified for our Nature paper on finding

memristors.

Aren't there other fundamental passive devices that don't add energy to a circuit? What about diodes?

No, there are only four fundamental types of passive circuit elements. Diodes are just non-linear resistors - the
resistance of a diode changes with the applied voltage, but if you turn off the voltage and start back at 0 volts, the
resistance of the diode is the same as it was before at 0 volts, not what it was when the voltage was turned off. This
is also true of a resistor that heats up and increases its resistance because of a temperature increase. Thus, neither a
diode nor a heated resistor 'remember' their history. However, each type of fundamental circuit element is actually a
family of devices with essentially an infinite number of higher order members. To see all the members of the four
families of fundamental devices, see the following paper: Leon O. Chua, "Nonlinear Circuit Foundations for
Nanodevices, Part I: The Four-Element Torus," Proc. IEEE 91, 1830-1859 (2003). This is a very educational paper,
but requires a significant investment in effort to appreciate. Note: Part II has not appeared in the literature yet.

What was the contribution of HP Labs?

We were the first to understand that the hysteresis that was being observed in the I-V curves of a wide variety of
materials and structures was actually the result of memristance and something more general that can be called
'memristive behavior' [see L.O. Chua & S. M. Kang, "Memristive devices and systems," Proc. IEEE 64, 209-223
(1976)]. We then went on to create an elementary circuit model that was defined by exactly the same mathematical
equations as those predicted by Chua for the memristor, with the exception that this model had an upper bound to the
resistance (which means that at large bias or long times, it is a memristive device). We then showed that this simple
model could reproduce a wide variety of eccentric and complex I-V curves that have been observed and reported
over the years by many researchers, including ourselves. Most of these did not look much like the 'figure 8' curves of
Chua, but rather 'S' and 'N' curves that have erroneously been attributed to negative differential resistance, which is
one reason why the connection to memristive behavior had not been made earlier. We also showed that in a highly
simplified form appropriate for a general audience journal like Natureor for a basic undergraduate course, the
equations for the drift of oxygen vacancies in TiO2 and their influence on the electronic conduction in the material
were also identical with our equivalent circuit model, and thus Chua's memristor equations. From this, we could for
the first time write down a formula for the memristance of a device in terms of material and geometrical properties of
the device (just as the resistance is the resistivity of the material times the length divided by the cross sectional area
of the resistor). Our memristance formula immediately showed that the size of the most important term in the
memristance gets larger the smaller the device thus showing that it was not very important for micron-scale
electronics but is becoming very important for nanoscale devices. We have developed more sophisticated and
accurate models that will be published at a future date, and we have used our models to design and build better
memristors.

What types of applications could memristors have?

We see two types of applications for memristors and memristive devices.

The first, as the name "memory resistor" implies, is for a type of non-volatile random access memory, or NVRAM.
Such a memory would have very useful properties, in that it would not 'forget' the data that it stores when the power is
turned off. We think that NVRAM made with the types of memristor materials that are currently being studied by many
groups around the world could be a strong competitor to the flash memory market in about five years. The great thing
is that the various metal oxides that have been identified as having a memory function are highly compatible with
present chip fabrication facilities, so they can be made in existing foundries without a lot of changes being required.
The major contribution of our work to this effort at this point is to make the connection to the non-linear circuit theory
of Leon Chua without the fundamental understanding that comes from his circuit equations, the devices themselves
are fairly useless.
Another interesting application is as an 'artificial synapse' in a circuit designed for analog computation. Prof. Chua
himself pointed out the connection between the properties of his proposed memristor and those of a synapse in his
earliest papers, and he has performed a lot of research in the area of neural computing. We also think that this is a
very interesting and potentially valuable research direction.
However, as experience shows, the most valuable applications of memristors will most likely come from some young
student who learns about these devices and has an inspiration for something totally new.