HP Discovered "The Fourth Element"
By Alexandre Carst
21:39, April 30th 2008
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On Wednesday, a group of engineers from Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced in the science journal Nature the completion of a new simple circuit element’s design, which has, until now, only existed in theory.
Leon Chua, professor at the University of California at Berkeley, came up with a mathematical theory that a fourth fundamental circuit, besides the resistor, the capacitor and the inductor, is needed in order to have a sort of scientific symmetry. This happened 37 years ago.
"He looked at fundamental circuit equations and noticed there was a hole," Stanley Williams, head of the Information and Quantum Systems lab at HP Labs, said. "There should be a device that remembers how much current flowed through a device."
The statement found in the latest issue of Nature comes to confirm Leon Chua’s words. HP’s new component, called memory resistor or "memristor," is expected to have a great impact on hardware development. According to Mr Williams, once memristors are successfully implemented in the already existing circuit technologies, they may eventually enable memory chips to store information in absence of electrical current for long periods of time and also significantly reduce power consumption.
In order to demonstrate the theory, a prototype was constructed with the use of a microscopic film of titanium dioxide which was placed between two electrodes; a charge was then applied.
However, not everyone is as enthusiastic as HP people. "It doesn't really sound like a blazing new discovery in my mind," Edward Doller, chief technology officer of Numonyx, commented. HP long-term plan is to implement memristors in computers and also in several types of hand-held devices.
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