You know about resistors, capacitors, and inductors, but how about the “memristor”? According to an article in EE Times, “virtually every electronics textbook will have to be revised to include the memristor and the new paradigm it represents for electronic circuit theory.” The new circuit element, which was proposed back in 1971 by Prof. Leon Chua of UC-Berkeley, but only recently invented by HP Senior Fellow R. Stanley Williams, “remembers” changes in current passing through it by changing its resistance.
According to the article:
The memristor behaves like a non-linear resistor with memory–a small, compact and highly energy-efficient means of creating a memory device. But Chua and Williams claim it is also a new type of circuit element that should enable the creation of new devices never before imagined.
An article on this new component has also been published in Spectrum, the magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).
I want to know when I can buy some from Mouser. :)
UPDATE 7/9/08
HP Labs researchers now think that commercial prototypes of the memristor will be available in 2009. Read all about it here.
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