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New Memristor Design Can Hold Up to 128 Memory States Per Switch

posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 29 2018, @10:07AM   
from the that's-a-lot-of-states dept.

takyon writes:

Scientists develop new technology standard that could shape the future of electronics design

In a study published in the journal Scientific Reports [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-17785-1] [DX], researchers show how they have pushed the memristor – a simpler and smaller alternative to the transistor, with the capability of altering its resistance and storing multiple memory states – to a new level of performance after experimenting with its component materials.

[...] The University of Southampton team has demonstrated a new memristor technology that can store up to 128 discernible memory states per switch, almost four times more than previously reported.

In the study, they describe how they reached this level of performance by evaluating several configurations of functional oxide materials – the core component that gives the memristor its ability to alter its resistance.

[...] Professor Prodromakis and his colleagues will be showcasing the technology, and presenting seven original research papers, at ISCAS 2018, an international circuits and systems conference, in Florence, Italy, in May.

"Almost four times more"?

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Original Submission

• Re:"Up to" seems a stretch Re:"Up to" seems a stretch (Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Monday January 29 2018, @11:05AM (2 children)

  by WalksOnDirt (5854) on Monday January 29 2018, @11:05AM (#629769) Journal

  Going from three bits to over six bits is more than doubling the performance. Nice, as long as it is just as fast and stable as the three bit version was.

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• Re:"Up to" seems a stretch Re:"Up to" seems a stretch (Score: 4, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday January 29 2018, @12:02PM (1 child)

  by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Monday January 29 2018, @12:02PM (#629789) Homepage

  Nominally doubling the per-gate information density, yes, that's impressive. This definitely looks like very interesting technology for the future (I'm reminded of the history of high-temperature superconductors, and how different element ratios were toyed with). But you're right, it needs to be practical, not just theoretical - the paper addresses the issues of reliability and stability: "Even in the worst case the AlxOy/TiO2 devices consistently exhibit at least 4-bit of information with half of the devices surpassing 5-bits and 1/3 the 6-bit mark (Fig. 5b)." In this peri-pre-post-Moore era[*], let's hope it scales, and broadens its fields of use. Sometimes semiconductor tech can take a decade or more to go from lab to industry, though, and sometimes it hits an unsurmountable bump, so let's keep fingers crossed.
  
  [* meaning "near the time when we're coming up to the era where Moore's Law fails to be predictive", but you knew that, right?]

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  Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

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  • Re:"Up to" seems a stretch (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @03:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @03:21PM (#629832)

    Xkcd's Researcher Translation [xkcd.com]

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