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HP unveils 'memristor' development
Hewlett-Packard has announced advancements in research that could change the way computers are designed while better equipping them to process the current "information explosion".
Researchers at HP Labs, the company's central research arm, found that the "memristor" - a resistor with memory that represents the fourth basic circuit element in electrical engineering - has more capabilities than they had previously thought.
As well as being useful in storage devices, the memristor can also perform logic, which will one day enable computation to be performed in chips where data is stored rather than on a specialised central processing unit.
Eventually, memristor-based processors could replace the silicon in the smart display screens found in e-readers, and may even become the successors to silicon on a larger scale.
R Stanley Williams, senior fellow and director at HP's Information and Quantum Systems Lab, said: "Since our brains are made of memristors, the flood gate is now open for commercialisation of computers that would compute like human brains, which is totally different from the von Neumann architecture underpinning all digital computers."
Copyright © Press Association 2010
www.hp.com/uk (Hewlett-Packard)
