Memristorens existence was first demonstrated theoretically by professor Leon Chua at the University of California, Berkeley in 1971. The package was presented for the first time at HP Labs in 2006. The discovery was first published in autumn 2008, when HP describes a prototype of a memristor-based memory chip.
In our described how HP memristor circuits can also be used for logical operations, ie calculations. This means that memristorer open not only for a new type of electronic memory, but also pieces in which the same basic components can be used both in memory and to the figures, with the second a combination of CPU and RAM.
HP has now announced that they join forces with the South Korean memory giant Hynix to develop commercial products based on memristorer. The goal is to start sales during 2013.
The collaboration between HP and Hynix terms of materials, production processes, architecture, circuit design, error correcting code, etc., to produce memory chips based on memristorer. Memristor-based memory called "ReRAM" aka "Resistive RAM". The abbreviation RRAM has also been used. The development of materials and manufacturing processes will take place at Hynixs laboratories in South Korea, and several of HP's memristor researchers will move there from California.
The first ReRAM-pieces will be made in the same format as today's flash memory, with regard to the use of mobile phones, media players, digital cameras, memory sticks and so on. In the long run see HP and Hynix for that ReRAM completely replace both Flash, DRAM (standard computer memory) and hard disks.
Compared with today's flash memory is ReRAM ten times as fast, and energy consumption is one tenth. The experiments so far indicate that the memristor memory can be overwritten many times more than flash memory. Stanley Williams, director of Information and Quantum Systems Laboratory (IQSL) HP says it should be possible to produce ReRAM products at half the price of flash memory with the same capacity. In other words, talk of a veritable revolution in relation to today's flash memory.