Phase-change memory chips could dethrone flash memory

http://www.economist.com/node/21560981

by boh • 14 years ago

4 2 14 years ago

lvh• 14 years ago

Quote from the article:

The amorphous state has a higher electrical resistance than the crystalline state, allowing the value stored in the cell to be determined. (For this reason PCM memory is sometimes called “resistive memory”, and its individual cells are sometimes referred to as “memristors”.)

This appears to suggest that memristors are things that remember by having variable resistance. I was under the impression that memristors are a fundamentally completely different passive component having a property M linking the time integrals of current and voltage, as opposed to a resistor, which links current and voltage, not their respective time integrals.

Could anyone clarify?

josnyder• 14 years ago

From Wikipedia:

Leon Chua, who is considered to be the father of non-linear circuit theory, has argued that all 2-terminal non-volatile memory devices including phase change memory should be considered memristors. Stan Williams of HP Labs has also argued that phase change memory should be considered to be a memristor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-change_memory

Phase-change memory chips could dethrone flash memory

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