
Keynote on memristors by R. Stanley Williams of HP Labs - modeless
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKGhvKyjgLY
======
modeless
This 45-minute keynote presentation has pretty much everything you could
possibliy want to know about memristors. If you want the 6-minute condensed
version instead, try <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvA5r4LtVnc>

It seems as if memristors have the potential to be very important to the
future of computing, but the one question I haven't seen answered yet is
endurance. The operation of memristors involves atoms physically migrating
back and forth. If memristors wear out like flash memory after a few thousand
switchings then the talk of them replacing DRAM is just hot air, and building
artificial synapses seems unlikely to work either.

~~~
ehsanul
If I'm not misunderstanding, in the full 45-minute keynote, he mentions
endurance a bunch of times. Apparently, on the newer memristor devices they
came up with, the lifetimes of the devices are on a "geological" timescale,
and could "theoretically" last forever. Of course, theory != practice. But
there was quite a bit of time spent talking about this issue.

Edit: Also, I would highly recommend those with the time to watch the
45-minute keynote, and not just the condensed explanation. It really is worth
it.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
When he was talking about geological timescales, what he meant was how long a
memristor retains it's state after being switched, while I'm more interested
in how many times can he safely switch the device.

~~~
Aron
He indicates at 0:33.30 that the endurance is slightly better than flash.

~~~
modeless
Yes, and what I'm wondering is if that's a fundamental limitation or if it's
something that can be easily improved. The endurance of DRAM is essentially
infinite and I have a feeling that's going to be tough to reach with
memristors.

~~~
Aron
Williams discusses briefly here (at 50 min) his hope that endurance would be
significantly improved by moving from the lab equipment they use for
fabrication to a more commercial quality system.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHJvp5MybkM&feature=chann...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHJvp5MybkM&feature=channel)

Sounds a bit wishful in thinking, but I have no experience in the matter.

The center panelist then seems to indicate that Intel is more interested in
the phase change version because they want 'a rock that can switch 10^6
times..'.

So I think you might be right that this is a significant issue (particularly
into DRAM or computation).

------
ehsanul
This is astounding! To think that circuit component as fundamental as
resistors/capacitors/inductors has been hidden from us till now..

And the applications are equally mind-boggling. If he's right about what is
potentially possible using memristors then we're in for an amazing ride this
decade. I for one hope we can soon say our farewells to HDD's, DRAM and SSD's.

~~~
ableal
Er ... Josephson junctions, bubble memory, etc. ? Sometimes things do not pan
out. Either because there's no significant advantage to the new tech, or
because of manufacturing costs/problems, or ...

Having hope is good, but keep in mind that the guys coming up with the new
stuff point the upsides, of course. Then the hard-nosed spoilsports figure out
the problems.

Personally, I've been keeping an eye on this one for over a year - we'll
probably figure out if it's a 'yea' or a 'nay' in another year. But I'm not
seeing as much third-party excitement as expectable.

~~~
skorgu
I'm wary as well. Think of how many revolutionary ram technologies have been
just around the corner for ages. Mram, Feram, the "Upcoming" section of
Wikipedia's memory pages lists more. Some of them were discovered in the 70s
and are now 3-5 years from mass market! Just like they were three years ago!

