Memristors in the Prop II?

Bobb Fwed

I know this is a bit out there...but I really don't know how finalized the design of the Prop II is. I'd also like to bring up a [noparse][[/noparse]brand] new piece of technology that many may not know about yet: the memristor (memory-resistor). Do some reading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor

My question would be, is it possibly for the Prop II to utilize such an element in its implementation? For example, replace the on board RAM with memristors (now called RRAM -- resistive RAM). This gives it operating speeds of RAM, while have persistent, non-volatile memory. This technology would have many benefits for the small form factor of any IC, but especially powerful µControllers.

I'm really excited about this technology, but I haven't heard of it being integrated into anything I can use yet.

virtuPIC

Bobb Fwed said...
I'm really excited about this technology, but I haven't heard of it being integrated into anything I can use yet.

You say it. I'm not a semiconductor expert but this technology is too new to be applied in a commercial product. Has anybody already seen such a device on the market? Further, I expect that building such a chip combining memristors with access logic would require combining different materials (e.g. Si + TiO2) which requires additional production steps and dampens yield drastically.

There are other technologies you can already buy which currently please our needs like Flash. Or like e.g. FRAM if you want to be more exotic. Well, FRAM is not integrated into processors so far, too.

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Airspace V - international hangar flying!
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Mike Huselton

3-5 years down the road - if something else doesn't come along. Read "Acellerando" by Charles Stross. Open source experiment in publishing a SF novel.
Charlie's timeline and crystal ball are spot-on.

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JMH

Beau Schwabe

That process is quite a bit smaller than what we are using on the PropII by almost a factor of 6X and there are additional materials and layers involved that would not be a cost effective solution at the moment.· Since this was released in April of 2008, from HP they probably own excusive rights to the technology which means that you could pay a pretty penny for it now.· If this proves to be a viable memory alternative, then I would expect it to mature very quickly over the next few years, and then and only then would it be available IP to other companies wanting to use this technique.
The wires used in the described memory process have 50nm widths... the wires used in the PropII process have 280nm minimum widths with the transistor gate width having a 180nm width.
Edit:
Just to add, from a layout perspective, even though the physical memory may be small, because of the analog nature of this resistive cell, and apparently having the ability to hold an analog value, the "Memory Read/Write Circuitry" will most likely be larger ... which might make this trade-off deceiving.· With that said It might be difficult to judge exactly how much silicon real estate you will gain compared to existing memory technologies.






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Beau Schwabe

IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.

Post Edited (Beau Schwabe (Parallax)) : 3/11/2009 1:06:32 AM GMT

Bobb Fwed

Good to know.

By the way, is there a place where we can get the latest info on the Prop II? Specs, release date, anything?

Kye

No, don't ask that question.

Shh!!!

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Nyamekye,

Bobb Fwed

lol...sorry. I recall my last post. (but not really...PM me if there is info). --if it's all that sensitive.

mctrivia

why not go old school and use punch cards instead?

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,2111625,00.htm

amazing how things have changed since 2002 with 16GB uSD cards

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