HP, Hynix Tag Team Next Generation Memory Project

Posted 09/01/2010 at 5:16am | by Paul Lilly

4

Comments

Print

The eggheads over at HP Labs announced that they're putting their brains together with the geeks at Hynix Semiconductor to turn memristor technology into a shipping product, one that will take the place of all kinds of storage mediums.

"We believe that the memristor is a universal memory that over time could replace flash, DRAM, and even hard drives," says Dr. Stanley Williams, HP Senior Fellow and IQSL (Information and Quantum Systems Laboratory) founding Director.

The two companies will jointly develop the once theoretical technology in the form of Resistive Random Access Memory (ReRAM), a non-volatile memory constructed from materials that change resistance when applying voltage.

Where this technology ultimately leads is wide open. HP Labs says ReRAM will see use first as a replacement for flash memory with chips that run no less than ten times faster while using ten times less power than their flash memory counterparts. But looking longer term, memristors can also perform logic functions and could eventually perform computational tasks where data is stored, leading to much faster PCs.

HP Labs has plenty more on the subject here.

Image Credit: HP Labs