Nano Switches that Store More Data Head to Market

An electronic component that offers a new way to squeeze more data into computers and portable gadgets is set to go into production in just a couple of years. Hewlett-Packard announced today that it has entered an agreement with the Korean electronics manufacturer Hynix Semiconductor to make the components, called "memristors," starting in 2013. Storage devices made of memristors will allow PCs, cellphones, and servers to store more and switch on instantly.
Memristors are nanoscale electronic switches that have a variable resistance, and can retain their resistance even when the power is switched off. This makes them similar to the transistors used to store data in flash memory. But memristors are considerably smaller--as small as three nanometers. In contrast, manufacturers are experimenting with flash memory components that are 20 nanometers in size.

"The goal is to be at least double whatever flash memory is in three years--we know we'll beat flash in speed, power, and endurance, and we want to beat it in density, too," says Stanley Williams, a senior fellow at HP who has been developing memristors in his lab for about five years.

HP makes memristors by laying down parallel metal nanowires onto a substrate, coating them with a layer of titanium dioxide, and placing a second layer of nanowires perpendicular to the first layer. Where the wires cross, a memristor is formed. HP expects the first devices containing memristors to offer about 20 gigabytes of storage per square centimeter, twice the projected capacity of flash at this time. The company has dubbed memristor-based data storage "ReRAM", which stands for Resistive Random Access Memory.