[Elecraft] OT: Memristor creation

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Interesting, especially since the effect as described there has been known
and used since the 1930's at least:

"...called a memristor, because it "remembers" changes in the current
passing through it by changing its resistance. Now HP claims to have
discovered the first instance of a memristor, which it created with a
bi-level titanium dioxide thin-film that changes its resistance when current
passes through it."

Bill Hewlett, co-founder of HP, would get a chuckle out of that statement.
The HP corporation was founded in the 1930s with its first product a
low-distortion audio oscillator that used such a device in its feedback loop
to keep distortion of the output waveform very low! The device Hewlett used
was a small incandescent light bulb. A incandescent bulb's resistance varies
in proportion to the current flowing through it.

IIRC, that invention was Hewlett's senior project at Stanford, and it was
their company's first product: the HP 200A Stabilized Wein Bridge
Oscillator. It's a circuit every one of us studied and used in engineering
school. I still have an example of one on my bench. 

I elected not to buy the article to see what's different in the devices
they're playing with now, but there's a certain "symmetry" in the idea that
HP started out with such a device and now their labs are discovering it anew
in modern nano-circuits. 

Ron AC7AC



-----Original Message-----
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Mike Markowski
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 8:08 AM
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Elecraft] OT: Memristor creation


Something new in circuits!

News:

    http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207403521

The paper itself:

    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7191/full/nature06932.html

73,
Mike ab3ap
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