SUMEET SINGH KANG 2008EEC40 SHRI MATA VAISHNO DEVI UNIVERSITY

INTRODUCTION
Currently known fundamental passive elements

Resistors, Capacitors & Inductors.

Does a 4th passive element exist..? Leon O. Chua formulated Memristor theory in his paper

Memristor-The Missing Circuit Element in 1971.

Memistors are passive two terminal circuit elements whose

resistance changes with the charge flowing through it.

Behaves like a nonlinear resistor with memory. Memory+resistor= Memristor.
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HISTORY
In

1971 LEON CHUA postulated a new twoterminal circuit element characterized by a relationship between charge and flux linkage and claimed it as a fourth fundamental circuit element. In year 2008 Hp came forward with the first memristor. Greg snider and Stanley williams were the keyplayers in the team of hp which came forward with the first memristor.
MR. STANLEY WILLIAMS
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HOW IT CAME INTO PICTURE

Current Voltage Charge

Flux
Fig: relationship between different basic circuit parameters
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Contd

Fig: figure shows the missing relationship between flux and charge

WHAT IS MEMRISTANCE
Memristance is a property of an electronic component to

retain its resistance level even after power has been shut down.
When charge flows in one direction, its resistance increases,

and if direction is reversed, resistance decreases.

When v=0, charge flow stops & component will remember

the last resistance it had.

When the flow of charge regains, the resistance of the circuit

will be the value when it was last active.

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CHUAS THEORY

Each memristor is characterized by its memristance function describing the charge-dependent rate of change of flux.

As we know from, Faraday's 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

It can be inferred from this that memristance is simply charge-

dependent resistance. . i.e. ,

CONTD..
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 long as the maximum change in q does not cause much change in M.
If I(t)=0, then V(t)=0 and M(t) is a constant. This is the essence of the

memory effect.
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BASIC WORKING PRINCIPLE

A memristor is a nonlinear resistor, a resistor whose resistance changes over time based on the amount and direction of current that has passed through it.
Fig: an array of 17 memristors in a row
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CONTD
As with a pipe analogy:

a resistor is like a pipe whose diameter is

constant and limits water flow through it accordingly

A memrisitor is like a pipe which has the

property that if water flows through it one direction the diameter shrinks and if it flows in the other direction it expands and once water stops flowing through it,Iit remains the same size until water starts flowing again.
11 Fig: effect of current on resistance of memristor

I-V CHARACTERISTICS
In contrast to ordinary resistors, memristance may be switched to different resistance states based on the history of the voltage applied to the memristor. The behavior of a memristor appear closer to that found in hysteresis curves associated with magnetic materials. Two straight line curves formed may be interpreted as two distinct resistance states, with the remainder of the curve as transition regions between these two states.
Fig: i-v characteristics of memristor
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WHAT SETS MEMRISTORS APART

It can be used to implement both digital and analog

functions with very small circuit as compared to circuits used today.

Innovating nanotechnology due to the fact that it performs

better the smaller it becomes.

By changing the speed and strength of the current, it is

possible to change the behavior of the device.

A fast and hard current causes it to act as a digital device.
A soft and slow current causes it to act as an analog device.
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POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS

Can now think about fabricating a non-volatile random access memory (RAM) or memory chips that don't forget the data when a computer is shut off. Memristors carries a memory of its past. Denser cells allow memristor circuits to store more data than flash memory. Memristor technology could one day lead to systems that can remember and associate patterns in a way similar to how people do i.e. brain like systems. They can act as switches. For some memristors, applied current or voltage will cause a great change in resistance. Such devices may be characterized as switches by investigating the time and energy that must be spent in order to achieve a desired change in resistance.

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LIMITATIONS
The most significant limitation is that the memristors

functions at about one-tenth the speed of todays DRAM memory cells.

Although small dimension of device seems to imply

fast operation, the charge carriers move very slowly.

Since the density

of the circuit increases the heat

dissipation comes into the picture.

It is still in the research phase.
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CONCLUSION
The rich hysteretic v-i characteristics detected in

many thin film devices can now be understood as memristive behaviour. 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 decreasing its power consumption.

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REFERENCES
Sally Adee, The Mysterious Memristor. Available at http://www.pdf-

searchengine.com/memristor-pdf.html ebook_pdf.
http://WWW.MEMRISTOR.ORG
http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/tech_talk/2008/07/memristors_comi

ng_soon_to_a_br.html.
Chih-Yang Lin, Chih-Yi Liu, Chun-Chieh Lin, T.Y, Tseng, Current

status

of

resistive

nonvolatile

memories/memristors,

Electroceram, DOI 10.1007/s10832-007-9081-y, 2007.

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