A SEMINAR REPORT

ON

MEMRISTOR





CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that Ms. Aswathykutty.K.Pof E.C. Final Year have submitted her seminar
report on Memristor under the guidance of Electronics Engineering Department. This seminar
report is partial fulfillment of herB.Tech course from Kerala University



.



Mr.Santhanu.S
(SEMINAR GUIDE















ABSTRACT

Typically electronics has been defined in terms of three fundamental elements
such as resistors, capacitors and inductors. These three elements are used to define the four
fundamental circuit variables which are electric current, voltage, charge and magnetic flux.
Resistors are used to relate current to voltage, capacitors to relate voltage to charge, and
inductors to relate current to magnetic flux, but there was no element which could relate charge
to magnetic flux.To overcome this missing link, scientists came up with a new element called
Memristor. It has the properties of both a memory element and a resistor (hence wisely named
as Memristor). These properties lead to a number of unique applications which cannot be
realized with RLC networks alone.Memristor is being called as the fourth fundamental
component, hence increasing the importance of its innovation. Although a physical device
without active power supply is still under development, experimental results are presented to
demonstrate the properties and potential applications of memristers. Its innovators say
memrisrors are so significant that it would be mandatory to re-write the existing electronics
engineering textbooks.













CONTENTS







ACKNOWLEDGEMENT


I would like to express our immense gratitude to all those who have directly or indirectly helped
us in completing our seminar on Memristor. I would like to thank themfor their effective
guidance & kind cooperation without which we would not have been able to introduce a good
presentation and complete this seminar report.Iwould like to thank the faculty members of
Department ofElectronics & CommunicationEngineering for their permission grant, constant
reminders and much needed motivation, which helped us to extract maximum knowledge from
the available sources.Lastly, my sincere thanks to all our friends for their coordination in
completion of this seminar report.




ASWATHYKUTTY.K.P(E.C.4
th
Year )






INTRODUCTION



Memristortheory was formulated and named by Leon Chua in a 1971 paper. Chua strongly
believed that a fourth device existed to provide conceptual symmetry with the resistor, inductor,
and capacitor. This symmetry follows from the description of basic passive circuit elements as
defined by a relation between two of the four fundamental circuit variables. A device linking
charge and flux (themselves defined as time integrals of current and voltage), which would be
the memristor, was still hypothetical at the time. However, it would not be until thirty-seven
years later, on April 30, 2008, that a team at HP Labs led by the scientist R. Stanley Williams
would announce the discovery of a switching memristor. Based on a thin film of titanium
dioxide, it has been presented as an approximately ideal device. The reason that the memristor is
radically different from the other fundamental circuit elements is that, unlike them, it carries a
memory of its past. When you turn off the voltage to the circuit, the memristor still remembers
how much was applied before and for how long. That's an effect that can't be duplicated by any
circuit combination of resistors, capacitors, and inductors, which is why the memristor qualifies
as a fundamental circuit element.























FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS OF ELECTRONICS

1 .RESISTOR







A resistor is a two-terminalelectronic component that produces a voltageacross its terminals that
is proportional to the electric current through it in accordance with Ohm's law which states
Voltage (V) across a resistor is proportional to the current (I) through it where the constant of
proportionality is the resistance (R).
V = I R
Electronic symbol
(Europe) (US)
Resistors are elements of electrical networks and electronic circuits and are ubiquitous in most
electronic equipment. Practical resistors can be made of various compounds and films, as well
as resistance wire (wire made of a high-resistivity alloy, such as nickel/chrome).
The primary characteristics of a resistor are the resistance, the tolerance, maximum working
voltage and the power rating. Other characteristics include temperature coefficient, noise,
and inductance. Less well-known is critical resistance, the value below which power
dissipation limits the maximum permitted current flow, and above which the limit is applied
voltage. Critical resistance depends upon the materials constituting the resistor as well as its
physical dimensions; it's determined by design.
Resistors can be integrated into hybrid and printed circuits, as well as integrated circuits. Size,
and position of leads (or terminals) are relevant to equipment designers; resistors must be
physically large enough not to overheat when dissipating their power.



2. CAPACITOR








A capacitor or condenser is a passiveelectronic component consisting of a pair of conductors
separated by a dielectric. When a voltagepotential difference exists between the conductors, an
electric field is present in the dielectric. This field stores energy and produces a mechanical force
between the plates. The effect is greatest between wide, flat, parallel, narrowly separated
conductors.
An ideal capacitor is characterized by a single constant value, capacitance, which is measured in
farads. This is the ratio of the electric charge on each conductor to the potential difference
between them. In practice, the dielectric between the plates passes a small amount of leakage
current. The conductors and leads introduce an equivalent series resistance and the dielectric has
an electric field strength limit resulting in a breakdown voltage.
Capacitors are widely used in electronic circuits to block the flow of direct current while
allowing alternating current to pass, to filter out interference, to smooth the output of power
supplies, and for many other purposes. They are used in resonant circuits in radio frequency
equipment to select particular frequencies from a signal with many frequencies.
ELECTRONIC SYMBOL


CURRENT-VOLTAGE RELATION
The current i (t ) through a component in an electric circuit is defined as the rate of change of
the charge q (t ) that has passed through it. Physical charges cannot pass through the dielectric
layer of a capacitor, but rather build up in equal and opposite quantities on the electrodes: as each
electron accumulates on the negative plate, one leaves the positive plate. Thus the accumulated
charge on the electrodes is equal to the integral of the current, as well as being proportional to
the voltage (as discussed above). As with any antiderivative, a constant of integration is added to
represent the initial voltage v (t
0
).

This is the integral form of the capacitor equation,
.
Taking the derivative of this, and multiplying by C, yields the derivative form,
.
The dual of the capacitor is the inductor, which stores energy in themagnetic field rather than
the electric field. Its current-voltage relation is obtained by exchanging current and voltage in the
capacitor equations and replacing C with the inductance L.









3. INDUCTOR











An inductor or a reactor is a passive electrical component that can store energy in a magnetic
field created by the electric current passing through it. An inductor's ability to store magnetic
energy is measured by its inductance, in units of henries. Typically an inductor is a conducting
wire shaped as a coil, the loops helping to create a strong magnetic field inside the coil due
to Faraday's law of induction. Inductors are one of the basic electronic components used in
electronics where current and voltage change with time, due to the ability of inductors to delay
and reshape alternating currents
Inductance (L) (measured in henries) is an effect resulting from the magnetic field that forms
around a current-carrying conductor that tends to resist changes in the current. Electric
current through the conductor creates a magnetic flux proportional to the current. A change in
this current creates a change in magnetic flux that, in turn, by Faraday's law generates
an electromotive force (EMF) that acts to oppose this change in current. Inductance is a
measure of the amount of EMF generated for a unit change in current. For example, an inductor
with an inductance of 1 henry produces an EMF of 1 volt when the current through the inductor
changes at the rate of 1 ampere per second. The number of loops, the size of each loop, and the
material it is wrapped around all affect the inductance.
An inductor opposes changes in current. An ideal inductor would offer no resistance to a
constant direct current; however, only superconducting inductors have truly zero electrical
resistance.
In general, the relationship between the time-varying voltage v(t) across an inductor with
inductance L and the time-varying current i(t) passing through it is described by the differential
equation:
.
Inductors are used extensively in analog circuits and signal processing. Inductors in conjunction
with capacitors and other components form tuned circuits
which can emphasize or filter out specif

c




NEED FOR MEMRISTOR


A memristor is one of four basic electrical components, joining the resistor, capacitor and
inductor. The memristor short for memory resistor was first theorized by student Leon Chua
in the early 1970s. He developed mathematical equations to represent the memristor, which
Chua believed would balance the function of the other three types of circuit elements.
The known three fundamental circuit elements as resistor, capacitor and inductor relates
four fundamental circuit variables as electric current, voltage, charge and magnetic flux. In that
we were missing one to relate charge to magnetic flux. That is where the need for the fourth
fundamental element comes in. This element has been named as memristor.






Image: J. J. Yang/HP Labs
MEMRISTOR THEORY AND ITS APPLICATIONS

DEFINITION OF MEMRISTOR

The memristor is formally defined as a two terminal element in which the magnetic
flux
m
between the terminals is a function of the amount of electric charge q that has
passed through the device.


FIGURE 2 : MEMRISTOR
SYMBOL
Chua defined the element as a resistor whose resistance level was based on the amount of charge
that had passed through the memristor.
MEMRISTANCE
Memristance is a property of an electronic component to retain its resistance level
even after power had been shut down or lets if remember (or recall) the last resistance it
had before being shut off.
THEROY
Each memristor is characterized by its memristance function describing the charge-
dependent rate of change of flux with charge.


Noting from Faradays law of induction that magnetic flux is
simply the time integral of voltage, and charge is the time integral of
current, we may write the more convenient form



It can be inferred from this that memristance is simply charge-
dependent resistance i.e.,


This equation reveals that memristance defines a linear relationship between current and voltage,
as long as charge does not vary. Of course, nonzero current implies instantaneously varying
charge. Alternating current however may reveal the linear dependence in circuit operation by
inducing a measurable voltage without net charge movement as the maximum change in q does
not cause much change in M.









CURRENT Vs. VOLTAGE CHARACTERISTICS

The new circuit element many of the properties of resistors and shares the same unit of
measurement (ohms). However in contrast to ordinary resistors, in which the resistance is
permanently fixed, memristance may be programmed or switched to different resistance states
based on the history of the voltage applied to the memristance material. This phenomena can be
understood graphically in terms of the relationship between the current flowing through a
memristor and the voltage applied across the memristor.
In ordinary resistors there is a linear relationship between current and voltage so that a graph
comparing current and voltage results in a straight line. However for memristor a similar graph
is a little more complicated as shown in figure.3. It illustrates the current Vs voltage behavior of
memristance.
In contrast to the straight line expected from most resistors the behavior of a memristor appear
closer to that fount in hysteresis curves associated with magnetic materials. It is notable from
figure.3 that two straight line segments are formed within the curve. These two straight lines
curves may be interpreted as two distinct resistance states with the remainder of the curve as
transition regions between these two states.











Figure.3 : current Vs voltage curve
demonstrating hysteretic effects of memristance.









Figure.4 : idealized hysteresis model of
resistance Vs. voltage for memristance switch.
Figure.4 illustrates an
idealized resistance
behavior demonstrated in
accordance with figure.3
wherein the linear
correspond to a relatively high
resistance (R
H
) and low resistance (R
L
) and the transition regions are represented by straight
lines.
Thus for voltages within a threshold region (-V
L2
< V < V
L1
in figure. 4) either a high or low
resistance exists for the memristor. For a voltage above threshold V
L1
the resistance switches
from a high to a low level and for a voltag the resistance switches back to a high resistance of
opposite polarity above threshold V
L2

WORKING OF MEMRISTOR




Fig.5 (a). Al/TiO2 or TiOX /Al Sandwich

The memristor is composed of a thin (5 nm) titanium dioxide film between two
electrodes as shown in figure 5(a) above. Initially there are two layers to the film, one of which
has a slight depletion of oxygen atoms. The oxygen vacancies act as charge carriers, meaning
that the depleted layer has a much lower resistance that the non-depleted layer. When an electric
field is applied the oxygen vacancies drift changing the boundary between the high-resistance
and low-resistance layers.







Figure 5(b) showing 17
memristors in a row
Thus the resistance of the
film as a whole is dependent on how
much charge has been passed through
it in a particular direction, which is
reversible by changing the
direction of current. Since the memristor displays fast ion conduction at nanoscale, it is
considered a nanoioinc device. Figure 5(b) shows the final memristor component.














MEMRISTOR FEATURES


Memristor is passive two-terminal element that maintains functional relation between charge flowing
through the device (i.e. time integral of current) and flux or Amemristor is a two-terminal
semiconductor device whose resistance depends on the magnitude and polarity of the voltage applied
to it and the length of time that voltage has been applied. When you turn off the voltage, the
memristor remembers its most recent resistance until the next time you turn it on, whether that
happens a day later or a year later.


As its name implies, the memristor can "remember" how much current has passed through it. And by
alternating the amount of current that passes through it, a memristor can also become a one-element
circuit component with unique properties. Most notably, it can save its electronic state even when the
current is turned off, making it a great candidate to replace today's flash memory. 7

A common analogy to describe a memristor is similar to that of a resistor. Think of a resistor as a
pipe through which water flows. The water is electric charge. The resistors obstruction of the flow
of charge is comparable to the diameter of the pipe: the narrower the pipe, the greater the resistance.
For the history of circuit design, resistors have had a fixed pipe diameter. But a memristor is a pipe
that changes diameter with the amount and direction of water that flows through it. If water flows
through this pipe in one direction, it expands (becoming less resistive). But send the water in the
opposite direction and the pipe shrinks (becoming more resistive). Further, the memristor remembers
its diameter when water last went through. Turn off the flow and the diameter of the pipe freezes
until the water is turned back on. , the pipe will retain it most recent diameter until the water is turned
back on. Thus, the pipe does not store water like a bucket (or a capacitor) it remembers how much
water flowed through it.
Fig.2.2: Schematic diagram of pipe and current example

The reason that the memristor is radically different from the other fundamental circuit elements is
that, unlike them, it carries a memory of its past. When you turn off the voltage to the circuit, the
memristor still remembers how much was applied before and for how long. That's an effect that can't
be duplicated by any circuit combination of resistors, capacitors, and inductors.
d inductors, which is why the memristor qualifies as a fundamental circuit







Timeline
1808
Sir Humphry Davy is claimed by Leon Chua to have performed the first experiments showing the effects of a
memristor
1960
Bernard Widrow coins the term memistor (i.e. memory resistor) to describe components of an early artificial
neural network called ADALINE.
1968
Argall publishes an article showing the resistance switching effects of TiO2 which was later claimed in 2008
to be evidence of a memristor by researchers from Hewlett Packard
1971
Leon Chua postulated a new two-terminal circuit element characterized by a relationship between charge and
flux linkage as a fourth fundamental circuit element.
1976[
Chua and his student Sung Mo Kang generalized the theory of memristors and memristive systems including
a property of zero crossing in the Lissajous curve characterizing current vs. voltage behavior.
[

2005
On May 3 U.S. Patent 6,889,216 was issued. It described implementations of 2-terminal resistance-changing
devices similar to memristors in neural network architectures.
On December 6 Alex Nugent presents to the Atlantic Nano Forum at the US Patent Office on how to use 2-
terminal resistance-changing devices in reconfigurable logic and pattern recognition architectures and
discusses the power arguments that led to the creation of DARPA's SyNAPSE program.
2007[
On April 10 U.S. Patent 7,203,789 was issued. It described implementations of 2-terminal resistance switches
similar to memristors in reconfigurable computing architectures.
On November 27 U.S. Patent 7,302,513 was issued. it described implementations of 2-terminal resistance
switches similar to memristors in signal processing and pattern recognition.
2008
On April 15 U.S. Patent 7,359,888 was issued, including basic claims to a nanoscale 2-terminal resistance
switch crossbar array formed as a neural network.
On May 1 Strukov, Snider, Stewart and Williams published an article in Nature identifying a link between the
2-terminal resistance switching behavior found in nanoscale systems and memristors
On August 26 U.S. Patent 7,417,271 was issued, including claims covering the device described in the Nature
article by Strukov et al.
On September 2 U.S. Patent 7,420,396 was issued. It describes a dynamic circuit that provides voltage
feedback to memristive devices to create attractor states that are universal logic functions.
On October 28 U.S. Patent 7,443,711 was issued, including basic claims to a tunable nanoscale 2-terminal
resistance switch.
2009
On January 23 Di Ventra, Pershin and Chua extended the notion of memristive systems to capacitive and
inductive elements, namely capacitors and inductors whose properties depend on the state and history of the
system
On May 1 Kim, et al. described a newly discovered memristor material based on magnetite nanoparticles and
proposed an extended memristor model including both time-dependent resistance and time-dependent
capacitance.
On July 13 Mouttet described a memristor-based pattern recognition circuit performing an analog variation of
the exclusive nor function. The circuit architecture was proposed as a way to circumvent Von Neumann
architecture#Von Neumann bottleneck for processors used in robotic control systems.
On August 4 Choi e. al. described the physical realization of an electrically modifiable array of memristive
neural synapses
2010
On April 8 Borghetti, et al. described an array of memristors demonstrated the ability to perform logical
operations.
[

On April 20 Memristor-based content addressable memory (MCAM) was introduced
On June 1 Mouttet argued that the interpretation of the memristor as a fourth fundamental was incorrect and
that the HP Labs device was part of a broader class of memristive systems
On August 31 HP announced they had teamed up with Hynix to produce a commercial product dubbed
"ReRam".
On December 7 So and Koo developed a hydrogel form of memristor that was speculated to be useful to
construct a brain-computer interface
2011
In October Tse demonstrated printed memristive counters based on solution processing, with potential
applications as low-cost packaging components (no battery needed; powered by energy scavenging
mechanism).
2012[edit]
On March 23 HRL Laboratories and the University of Michigan announced the first functioning memristor
array built on a CMOS chip for applications in neuromorphic computer architectures.
[

On July 5, Italian researchers from Politecnico di Torino, Alon Ascoli and Fernando Corinto, showed that a
purely passive circuit, employing already-existing components, can exhibit memristive dynamics.
[
The circuit
is composed of an elementary diode bridge and an RLC series circuit, introducing nonlinearity and dynamical
behaviour into the system, respectively. In his latest classification of memristive systems, dated September
2013, Prof. L. O. Chua classified this circuit as an example of a generalized memristor.
On July 31 Meuffels and Soni criticized the memristor concept as being incompatible with fundamentals
of non-equilibrium thermodynamics.
[

2013
On February 27 Thomas et al., demonstrated that a memristor can be used to mimic a synapse more readily
than traditional CMOS technology and be used as the foundation for building physical circuits capable of
learning. The approach utilizes memristors as key components in a blueprint for an artificial brain.
[

On April 23 Valov, et al., argued that the current memristive theory must be extended to a whole new theory
to properly describe redox-based resistively switching elements (ReRAM). The main reason is the existence
of nanobatteries in redox-based resistive switches which violates the memristor theory's requirement for a
pinched hysteresis.
2014
On February 10, 2014, Nugent and Molter presented a new form of computing dubbed "AHaH Computing",
which uses two serially connected memristors as the storage medium for synaptic weights. The proposed
architecture provides a solution to the "von Neumann Bottleneck" by merging processor and memory, and
future hardware based on the technology may reduce the power consumption of a wide range of machine
learning applications.




APPLICATIONS AND BENEFITS OF MEMRISTOR

4.1. APPLICATIONS:
The three main areas of application currently under development for memristor electronics are
(i) Non-volatile memory
(ii) Logic/computation, and
(iii) Neuromorphics.

4.1.1. Non-volatile Memory:
Non-volatile memory is the dominant area being pursued for memristor technology. Of course most
of the companies listed (with the exception of Hewlett Packard) do not refer to their memory in terms
of the memristor and rather use a variety of acronyms (i.e. RRAM, CBRAM, PRAM, etc.) to
distinguish their particular memory design. While these acronyms do represent real distinctions in
terms of the materials used or the mechanism of resistance switching employed, the materials are still
all memristors because they all share the same characteristic voltage-induced resistance switching
behavior covered by the mathematical memristor model of Chua. Flash memory currently dominates
the semiconductor memory market.
However, each memory cell of flash requires at least one transistor meaning that flash design is
highly susceptible to an end to Moores law. On the other hand, memristor memory design is often
based on a crossbar architecture which does not require transistors in the memory cells. Although
transistors are still necessary for the read/write circuitry, the total number of transistors for a million
memory cells can be on the order of thousands instead of millions and the potential for addressing
trillions of memory cells exists using only millions (instead of trillions) of transistors. Another
fundamental limitation to conventional memory architectures is Von Neumanns bottleneck which
makes it more difficult to locate information as memory 20












































density increases. Memristors offer a way to overcome this hurdle since they can integrate memory
and processing functions in a common circuit architecture providing a de-segregation between
processing circuitry and data storage circuitry.
4.1.2. Logic/Computation:
The uses of memristor technology for logic and computational electronics is less well developed than
for memory architectures but the seeds of innovation in this area are currently being sown.
Memristors appear particularly important to the areas of reconfigurable computing architectures such
as FPGAs in which the arrangement between arrays of basic logic gates can be altered by
reprogramming the wiring interconnections. Memristors may be ideal to improve the integration
density and reconfigurability of such systems. In addition, since some memristor materials are
capable of tunablity in their resistance state they can provide new types of analog computational
systems which may find uses in modeling probabilistic systems (e.g. weather, stock market, bio
systems) more efficiently than purely binary logic-based processors.
4.1.3. NeuromorphicElectronics :
Neuromorphics has been defined in terms of electronic analog circuits that mimic neuro-biological
architectures. Since the early papers of Leon Chua it was noted that the equations of the memristor
were closely related to behavior of neural cells. Since memristors integrate aspects of both memory
storage and signal processing in a similar manner to neural synapses they may be ideal to create a
synthetic electronic system similar to the human brain capable of handling applications such as
pattern recognition and adaptive control of robotics better than what is achievable with modern
computer architectures.
4.2. Other applications:
Signal processing with memristors, Arithmetic processing with memristors, Pattern comparison with
memristors, Memristors and artificial intelligence, Memristors and robotics. 21

4.2.1. Materials:
Although the different memristor materials have their respective merits and possess differences in
terms of their underlying physics each material share the same resistance switching properties
possessed by memristors.
Variety of binary oxides such as WO3, Ir2O3, MoO3, ZrO2, and RhO2 adjusted to have memristive
properties. A variety of other memristor variations based on TiO, CuO, NiO, ZrO, and HfO materials
have been under experimental investigation for the past several years.
4.2.2. Metallization Cell:
The memristive effect is due to the formation of metallic filaments which interconnect two electrodes
separated by an electrolytic material. The metallic filaments can be broken or reformed depending on
the polarity of an applied voltage.
4.2.3. Perovskite:
Perovskite materials are based on a variety of ternary oxides including PCMO, SrTiO3, SrZrO3, and
BaTiO3. These types of materials appear to have variable resistances which are more easily tunable
via pulse number modulation which may make these materials more attractive for analog memristor
electronics than the metallization cell or binary oxide materials.
4.2.4. Molecular/Polymer:
Molecular and polymer materials have been investigated by Hewlett-Packard and Advanced Micro
Devices as the basis for new types of non-volatile memory. HP has been working with molecular
systems called rotaxane which are thought to exhibit a resistance switching effect based on a
mechanical reconfiguration of the molecule. AMD has been focusing on ionic molecular and
polymer materials which also produce resistance switching behavior and may have superior analog
memristive properties than other materials
BENEFITS OF MEMRISTOR:

ty.



f.



ristor can use anything between 0 and 1 (0.3, 0.8,
0.5, etc.)

device.
vice.


transistor which can kill a CPU.

23


-volatile memory, memristors do not consume power when idle.

disks.

4.4. Major Challenges
how to build circuits with the new element.
ilt, there is still
much more to be perfected.


































NEW HORIZONS :


After the discovery of memristor the authors have taken a new step towards the new devices with
properties like memristor.
There are two such elements which were next discovered :

1. MEMCAPACITOR
2. MEMINDUCTOR

The memcapacitormeminductor are the memdevices in which the capacitance and inductance respectively
depends on the state and history of the system.
They show pinched hysteresis loop in the constitutive variables that define them:-

Charge-voltage for Memcapaciatnce
Current flux for Meminductance

The difference between the Memristor and both these devices is that they store energy whereas
memristor cannot.









MEMCAPACITOR MEMINDUCTOR





CONCLUSION

By redesigning certain types of circuits to include memristors, it is possible to obtain the
same function with fewer components, making the circuit itself less expensive and significantly
decreases its power consumption. In fact it can be hoped to combine memristors with
traditional circuit-design elements to produce a device that does computation. The Hewlett-
Packard (HP) group is looking at developing a memristor based nonvolatile memory that could
be 1000 times faster than magnetic disks and use much less power.
At rightly said by Leon Chua and R. Stanley Williams (originators of memristor),
memristors are so significant that it would be mandatory to re-write the existing electronics
textbooks.


.












.
BIBLIOGRAPHY


1. WWW.GOOGLE.COM
2. WWW.WIKIPEDIA.COM
3. WWW.HOWSTUFFWORKS.COM
4. LEON CHUAS PAPER, 1971
HTTP://WWW.MEMRISTOR.ORG/