TECHNICAL REPORT ON

MEMRISTOR

SUBMITTED BY:

FAIZ AHMED

07R11A0473

B.TECH IV YEAR, ECE-B

INTERNAL GUIDE:

A.SRINIVAS

ASSISTANT PROFFESSOR

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

GEETHANJALI COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

(Approved by AICTE and Affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru Technological

University,Hyderabad)
Cheeryal(V), Keesara(M), Ranga Reddy Dist.-501 301
 INDEX

Topic Page No.

1. Introduction 01

2. Theory
a) Resistor 03
b) Capacitor 04
c) Inductor 05
d) Missing Link (Memristor) 07

3. Analogy for Memristor 11

4. Hyteresis Model 12

5. Construction of Memristor 15

6. Working of Memristor 16

7. Potential Applications 22

8. New Horizon 25

9. Conclusion 26

10.References 27
 Abstract
Memristor

Memristors are basically a fourth class of electrical circuit, joining the resistor, the capacitor, and
the inductor, that exhibit their unique properties primarily at the nanoscale. Theoretically,
Memristors is a concatenation of “memory resistors”, a circuit element in which the resistance is
a function of the history of the current through and voltage across the device.

A memristor is a passive two-terminal electronic component for which the resistance (dV/dI)
depends in some way on the amount of charge that has flowed through the circuit. When current
flows in one direction through the device, the resistance increases. and when current flows in the
opposite direction, the resistance decreases, although it must remain positive. When the current
is stopped, the component retains the last resistance that it had, and when the flow of charge
starts again, the resistance of the circuit will be what it was when it was last active.

The element "remembers" the amount of current that has passed through it in the past. it was
tagged by Chua with the name "memristor". 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

The memristor is essentially a two-terminal variable resistor, with resistance dependent upon the
amount of charge q that has passed between the terminals.

V=I.M(q)

Where M(q) = (dΦ)/(dq)

Types:
1. Molecular and Ionic Thin Film Memristive Systems
a. Titanium dioxide memristors
b. Polymeric (ionic) memristors
c. Manganite memristive systems
d. Resonant-tunneling diode memristors

2. Spin Based and Magnetic memristive systems

a. Spintronic Memristors
b. Spin Torque Transfer (STT) MRAM
3. 3-terminal memistors

Applications:
1. Non-volatile memory applications
2. Low-power and remote sensing applications
3. Crossbar Latches as Transistor Replacements or Augmentors
4. Analog computation and circuit Applications
5. Circuits which mimic Neuromorphic and biological systems (Learning Circuits)
6. Programmable Logic and Signal Processing.
 MEMRISTOR

Introduction :

Generally when most people think about electronics, they may initially think of products such as
cell phones, radios, laptop computers, etc. others, having some engineering background, may
think of resistors, capacitors, etc. which are the basic components necessary for electronics to
function. Such basic components are fairly limited in number and each having their own
characteristic function. Engineer’s basically knew about R,L,C as basic and fundamental
elements of electronics, But, Loen Chua found a new element Memristor, and published his
paper in 1971.

Memristor theory 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 (they are 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 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.

[1]
 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.

The arrangement of these few fundamental circuit components form the basis of almost all of
the electronic devices we use in our everyday life. Thus the discovery of a brand new
fundamental circuit element is something not to be taken lightly and has the potential to open
the door to a brand new type of electronics. HP already has plans to implement Memristors in a
new type of non-volatile memory which could eventually replace flash and other memory
systems.

Basically, a memristor is a passive two-terminal electronic component for which the resistance
(dV/dI) depends in some way on the amount of charge that has flowed through the circuit. When
current flows in one direction through the device, the resistance increases. And when current
flows in the opposite direction, the resistance decreases, although it must remain positive. When
the current is stopped, the component retains the last resistance that it had, and when the flow of
charge starts again, the resistance of the circuit will be what it was when it was last active.

More generally, a memristor is a two-terminal component in which the resistance depends on the
integral of the input applied to the terminals .Since the element "remembers" the amount of
current that has passed through it in the past, it was tagged by Chua with the name memristor.

Another way of describing a memristor is that it is any passive two-terminal circuit elements that
maintains a functional relationship between the time integral of current (called charge) and the
time integral of voltage (often called flux, as it is related to magnetic flux). The slope of this
function is called the memristance M and is similar to variable resistance.

Batteries can be considered to have memristance, but they are not passive devices. The definition
of the memristor is based solely on the fundamental circuit variables of current and voltage and
their time-integrals, just like the resistor, capacitor, and inductor. Unlike those three elements
however, which are allowed in linear time-invariant or LTI system theory, memristors of interest
have a nonlinear function and may be described by any of a variety of functions of net charge.

[2]
 There is no such thing as a standard memristor. Instead, each device implements a particular
function, wherein the integral of voltage determines the integral of current, and vice versa. A
linear time-invariant memristor is simply a conventional resistor.

Theory :

The fundamental elements of electronics :

1. Resistor :

A resistor is a two-terminal electronic component that produces a voltage across 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 = IR

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.
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.

[3]
2. Capacitors :

A capacitor or condenser is a passive electronic component consisting of a pair of conductors

separated by a dielectric. When a voltage potential 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.

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

[4]
 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 (t0).

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 the magnetic 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

[5]
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
specific signal frequencies. Smaller inductor/capacitor combinations provide tuned circuits used
in radio reception and broadcasting.

[6]
The Missing Link :

There are six different mathematical relations connecting pairs of four fundamental circuit
variables viz. current I, voltage v, charge q, and magnetic flux Φ.

One of these relations (the charge is time integral of current) is determined from the definition
of two of the variables and another (the flux is the time integral of the electromotive force or
voltage) is determined from faraday’s law of induction. Thus there should be four basic circuit
elements described by the remaining relation between the variables .

The relation between these fundamental elements can be shown as :

The relation between the charge and the flux was unknown, and so the device which
describes it. This led to the discovery of the fourth fundamental element which describes the
above missing relation between Charge and Flux

[7]
The 4th new Fundamental Element : MEMRISTOR
Evolution of Memristor :

Chua deduced the existence of memristors from the mathematical relationships between the
circuit elements.

The four circuit quantities (charge, current, voltage, and magnetic flux) can be related to each
other in six ways. Two quantities are covered by basic physical laws, and three are covered by
known circuit elements (resistor, capacitor, and inductor.

That leaves one possible relation unaccounted for. Based on this realization, Chua proposed the
memristor purely for the mathematical aesthetics of it, as a class of circuit element based on a
relationship between charge and flux.

Memristor is one of four basic electrical circuit components, joining the resistor, capacitor,
and inductor.

Since, there is no proof of any practical device which shows memristance, according to Chua’s
paper In the beginning of 2006, the group of researchers headed by Dr. R.Stanley Williams at
HP(Hewlett-Packard) labs, developed a simple model of binary switch based on the coupled
movement of both charge dopants and electrons in the semiconductor and saw that the defining
equations for this switch were identical to Chua’s mathematical definitions of memristor and

[8]
they were able to write down a defining equation for memristance of this device in terms of its
physical and geometric properties

The memristor is essentially a two-terminal variable resistor, with resistance dependent upon the
amount of charge q that has passed between the terminals.

To relate the memristor to the resistor, capacitor, and inductor, it is helpful to isolate the term
M(q), which characterizes the device, and write it as a differential equation.

Device Characteristic property (units) Differential equation

Resistor Resistance (V per A, or ohm, Ω) R = dV / dI

Capacitor Capacitance (C per V, or farad) C = dQ / dV

Inductor Inductance (Wb per A, or henry) L = dΦm / dI

Memristor Memristance (Wb per C, or ohm) M = dΦm / dQ

where Q is defined by I = dQ/dt, and Φm is defined by V = dΦm/dt. Note that the above table
covers all meaningful ratios of I, Q, Φm, and V. No device can relate I to Q, or Φm to V, because I
is the derivative of Q and Φm is the integral of V.

The variable Φm ("magnetic flux linkage") is generalized from the circuit characteristic of an
inductor. It does not represent a magnetic field here, and its physical meaning is discussed
below.

The symbol Φm may simply be regarded as the integral of voltage over time.

Thus, the memristor is formally defined as a two-terminal element in which the flux linkage (or
integral of voltage) Φm between the terminals is a function of the amount of electric charge Q
that has passed through the device. Each memristor is characterized by its memristance function
describing the charge-dependent rate of change of flux with charge.

[9]
Substituting that the flux is simply the time integral of the 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. If M(q(t)) is
a constant, then we obtain Ohm's Law R(t) = V(t)/ I(t). If M(q(t)) is nontrivial, however, the
equation is not equivalent because q(t) and M(q(t)) will vary with time. Solving for voltage as a
function of time we obtain

This equation reveals that memristance defines a linear relationship between current and voltage,
as long as M does not vary with charge.

Of course, nonzero current implies time 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.

Furthermore, the memristor is static if no current is applied. If I(t) = 0, we find V(t) = 0 and M(t)
is constant. This is the essence of the memory effect.

The power consumption characteristic recalls that of a resistor, I2R.

As long as M(q(t)) varies little, such as under alternating current, the memristor will appear as a
constant resistor. If M(q(t)) increases rapidly, however, current and power consumption will
quickly stop.

[10]
Analogy for Memristor :

A common analogy for a resistor is a pipe that carries water. The water itself is analogous to
electrical charge, the pressure at the input of the pipe is similar to voltage, and the rate of flow of
the water through the pipe is like electrical current.

Just as with an electrical resistor, the flow of water through the pipe is faster if the pipe is
shorter and/or it has a larger diameter. An analogy for a memristor is an interesting kind of pipe
that expands or shrinks when water flows through it.

If water flows through the pipe in one direction, the diameter of the pipe increases, thus enabling
the water to flow faster. If water flows through the pipe in the opposite direction, the diameter of
the pipe decreases, thus slowing down the flow of water. If the water pressure is turned off, 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.

[11]
HYSTERESIS MODEL
Hysteresis refers to systems that may exhibit path dependence, or "rate-independent memory". In
a deterministic system with no dynamics or hysteresis, it is possible to predict the system's
output at an instant in time given only its input at that instant in time. In a system with hysteresis,
this is not possible. The output depends in part on the internal state of system and not only on its
input. There is no way to predict the system's output without looking at the history of the input
(to determine the path that the input followed before it reached its current value) or inspecting
the internal state of the system.

The word hysteresis is often used specifically to represent rate-independent state. This means
that if some set of inputs X(t) produce an output Y(t), then the inputs X(αt) produce output Y(αt)
for any α > 0.

The magnetized iron or the thermostat have this property. Not all systems with state (or,
equivalently, with memory) have this property. For example, a linear low-pass filter has state,
but its state is rate-dependent.

This new circuit element shares 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 Memristors a similar graph
is a little more complicated. It illustrates the current vs. voltage behaviour of memristance.

As V(t) = M(q(t))*I(t), where M(q(t)) is Memristance as a function of Charge and Time.

It can be inferred that, If I =0, then V=0. This relation gives us PINCHED HYSTERESIS LOOP OF
MEMIRSTOR.

[12]
Current vs. Voltage curve demonstrating hysteretic effects of memristance.

Voltage Current and Frequency plotted graph

[13]
In contrast to the straight line expected from most resistors the behaviour of a Memristor
appear closer to that found in hysteresis curves associated with magnetic materials. As
observed above that two straight line segments are formed within the curve. These two
straight line curves may be interpreted as two distinct resistance states with the remainder of
the curve as transition regions between these two states.

DELAY IN DISCOVERY OF MEMRISTOR

Memristor, was not been seen before because the effect depends on atomic-scale movements,
it only poped up on the nanoscale of William’s devices. Information can be written into the
material as the resistance state of the memristor in a few nanoseconds using few picojoules of
energy “ as good as anything needs to be”.

[14]
CONSTRUCTION OF MEMRISTOR

About TiO2 :

Titanium dioxide, also known as titanium(IV) oxide or titania, is the naturally occurring oxide of
titanium, chemical formula TiO2.

Titanium dioxide occurs in nature as well-known minerals rutile, anatase and brookite, and
additionally as two high pressure forms, a monoclinic baddeleyite-like form and an
orthorhombic α-PbO2-like form, both found recently at the Ries crater in Bavaria.The most
common form is rutile. which is also the most stable form. Anatase and brookite both convert to
rutile upon heating. Rutile, anatase and brookite all contain six coordinated titanium.

Applications of TiO2 :

Titanium dioxide is the most widely used white pigment because of its brightness and very high
refractive index (n = 2.7), in which it is surpassed only by a few other materials. TiO 2 is also an
effective opacifier in powder form, where it is employed as a pigment to provide whiteness and
opacity to products such as paints, coatings, plastics, papers, inks, foods, medicines (i.e. pills and
tablets) as well as most toothpastes. In paint, it is often referred to offhandedly as "the perfect
white", "the whitest white"

In cosmetic and skin care products, titanium dioxide is used as a pigment, sunscreen and a
thickener.Titanium dioxide is found in almost every sunscreen with a physical blocker because
of its high refractive index, its strong UV light absorbing capabilities and its resistance to
discolouration under ultraviolet light. This advantage enhances its stability and ability to protect
the skin from ultraviolet light.

[15]
Researchers at the University of Tokyo, Japan have created a 25 terabyte titanium oxide-based
disc.

Titanium dioxide is also used as a material in the memristor, a new electronic circuit element. It
can be employed for solar energy conversion based on dye, polymer, or quantum dot sensitized
nanocrystalline TiO2 solar cells using conjugated polymers as solid electrolytes.

Semiconductors are doped to make them either p-type or n-type. For example, if silicon is doped
with arsenic, it become n-type. However, when we apply an electric field to piece of n-type
silicon, the ionized arsenics atoms sitting inside the silicon lattice will not move. We do not want
them to move, in any case.

WORKING OF MEMRISTOR

Like silicon, titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) is a semiconductor, and in its pure state it is highly
resistive. However, it can be doped with other elements to make it very conductive. In TiO 2 , the
dopants don't stay stationary in a high electric field. they tend to drift in the direction of the
current. Such mobility is poison to a transistor, but it turns out that's exactly what makes a
memristor work. Putting a bias voltage across a thin film of TiO 2 semiconductor that has
dopants only on one side causes them to move into the pure TiO 2 on the other side and thus
lowers the resistance. Running current in the other direction will then push the dopants back into
place, increasing the TiO 2 's resistance. Pure titanium dioxide (TiO2), which is also a
semiconductor, has high resistance, just as in the case of intrinsic silicon, and it can also be
doped to make it conducting. If an oxygen atom, which is negatively charged, is removed from
its substantial site in TiO2, a positively charged

oxygen vacancy is created(V0+) is created , which act as a donor of electrons. These positively

charged oxygen vacancies (V0+) can be in the direction of current applying electric field. Taking
advantage of this ionic transport, a sandwich of thin conducting and non-conducting layers of
TiO2 was used to release memristor

[16]
Fig : Conduction mechanism in a memristor

(a) Broader electronic barrier when a negative potential is applied to electrode A

(b) Thin electronic barrier when a positive potential is applied to electrode A

Consider, we have two thin layers of TiO2, one highly conducting layer with lots of oxygen
vacancies(V0+ ) and the other layer undoped, which is highly resistive. Suppose that good ohmic
contact are formed using platinum electrodes on either side of sandwich of TiO2 . The electronics
barrier between the undoped TiO2 and the metal looks broader. The situation remains the same, even

when a negative potential I applied to electrode A, because the positively charged oxygen vacancies(V0+)
are attracted towards electrode A and the length of undoped region increases. Under these conditions the
electronics barrier at the undoped TiO2 and the metal is still too wide and it will be difficult for the
electrons to cross over the barrier.

However, when a positive potential is applied at electrode A the positively charged oxygen
vacancies are repelled and moved into the undoped TiO2. This ionic movement towards electrode
B reduces the length of undoped region. When more positively charged oxygen vacancies(V0+)
reach the TiO2 metal interface, the potential barrier for the electrons become very narrow, as
shown, making tunneling through the barrier a real possibility. This leads to a large current flow,
making the device turn ON. In this case, the positively charged oxygen vacancies (V0+) are
present across the length of device. When the polarity of the applied voltage is reversed, the
oxygen vacancies can be pushed back into their original place on the doped side, restoring the
broader electronic barrier at TiO2 metal interface. This forces the device to turn OFF due to an
increase in the resistance of the device and reduce possibility for carrier tunneling .

[17]
The Coupled Variable-Resistor Model for a Memristor

The Diagram with a simplified equivalent circuit. V, Voltmeter. A, Ammeter.

Applied voltage and resulting current as a function of time t for a typical memristor

The equation given below describes the memristance of any device as a function of charge:

M(q) = Memristance of a device as a function of charge

Roff = High resistance state

Ron = Low resistance state

µv = Mobility of charge

q(t) = Charge flowing through device at any time t

D = Thickness of semiconductor film sandwiched between two metal contacts

[18]
For any material, this term is 1,000,000 times larger in absolute values at nanometer scale then is
at micrometer scale because of factor 1/D2 and memristance is correspondingly more significant.
So it was not possible to get the feel of memristance at millimeter scale, that is why it took 37
years to discover this nanoscale component.

Conceptually, the device was like a tiny sandwich. Two platinum electrodes (the intersecting
wires of the crossbar junction) functioned as the”bread” on either end of the device. The surface
of the bottom platinum wire was oxidized to make an extremely thin layer of platinum dioxide,
which is highly conducting. A dense film of only one molecule thick, specially designed
switching molecules was assembled,

Over this ”monolayer” Then deposited a 2- to 3-nm layer of titanium metal, which bonds
strongly to the molecules and was intended to glue them together. The final layer was the top
platinum electrode.

A memristor at Nano Scale

The molecules were supposed to be the actual switches. HP Labs built an enormous number of
these devices, experimenting with a wide variety of exotic molecules and configurations,
including rotaxanes, special switching molecules designed by James Heath and Fraser Stoddart
at the University of California, Los Angeles. The rotaxane is like a bead on a string, and with the
right voltage, the bead slides from one end of the string to the other, causing the electrical
resistance of the molecule to rise or fall, depending on the direction it moves. Heath and
Stoddart’s devices used silicon electrodes, and they worked, but not well enough for
technological applications: the off-to-on resistance ratio was only a factor of 10, the switching
was slow, and the devices tended to switch themselves off after 15 minutes.

[19]
HP Labs platinum devices yielded results that were nothing less than frustrating. When a switch
worked, it was spectacular: our off-to-on resistance ratios shot past the 1000 mark, the devices
switched too fast for them to even measure, and having switched, the device’s resistance state
remained stable for years (They still have some early devices which they test every now and
then, and they didn’t find significant change in resistance).

Under the molecular layer, instead of platinum dioxide, there was only pure platinum. Above the
molecular layer, instead of titanium, They found an unexpected and unusual layer of titanium
dioxide. They found that the titanium had sucked the oxygen right out of the platinum dioxide.

The oxygen atoms had somehow migrated through the molecules and been consumed by the
titanium. This was especially surprising because the switching molecules had not been
significantly perturbed by this event—they were intact and well ordered, which convinced them
that they must be something important in the device.

The chemical structure of the devices was not at all what they had thought it was. The titanium
dioxide—a stable compound found in sunscreen and white paint—was not just regular titanium
dioxide. It had split itself up into two chemically different layers. Adjacent to the molecules, the
oxide was stoichiometric TiO 2 , meaning the ratio of oxygen to titanium was perfect, exactly 2
to 1. But closer to the top platinum electrode, the titanium dioxide was missing a tiny amount of
its oxygen, between 2 and 3 percent. We called this oxygen-deficient titanium dioxide TiO 2-x ,
where x is about 0.05.

Because of this misunderstanding, they started performing the experiment backward. Every time
they had tried to create a switching model, they had reversed the switching polarity. In other
words, they predicted that a positive voltage would switch the device off and a negative voltage
would switch it on. In fact, exactly the opposite was true.

In August of 2006 HP Labs did a literature search and found about 300 relevant papers on
titanium dioxide. They found that each of the many different communities researching titanium
dioxide had its own way of describing the compound. By the end of the month, the pieces had
fallen into place, finally knew how the device worked.

The exotic molecule monolayer in the middle of our sandwich had nothing to do with the actual
switching. Instead, what it did was control the flow of oxygen from the platinum dioxide into the
titanium to produce the fairly uniform layers of TiO 2 and TiO 2-x . The key to the switching was
this bilayer of the two different titanium dioxide species. The TiO 2 is electrically insulating
(actually a semiconductor), but the TiO 2-x is conductive, because its oxygen vacancies are
donors of electrons, which makes the vacancies themselves positively charged. The vacancies

[20]
can be thought of like bubbles in a glass of beer, except that they don’t pop—they can be pushed
up and down at will in the titanium dioxide material because they are electrically charged.

Now HP Labs was able to predict the switching polarity of the device.

If a positive voltage is applied to the top electrode of the device, it will repel the (also positive)
oxygen vacancies in the TiO 2-x layer down into the pure TiO 2 layer. That turns the TiO 2 layer
into TiO 2-x and makes it conductive, thus turning the device on. A negative voltage has the
opposite effect: the vacancies are attracted upward and back out of the TiO 2 , and thus the
thickness of the TiO 2 layer increases and the device turns off. This switching polarity is what we
had been seeing for years but had been unable to explain.

And memristors are by no means hard to fabricate. The titanium dioxide structure can be made
in any semiconductor fab currently in existence. The primary limitation to manufacturing hybrid
chips with memristors is that today only a small number of people on Earth have any idea of how
to design circuits containing memristors.

The potential of the memristor goes far beyond juicing a few FPGAs.

HP Labs have referred several times to the similarity of memristor behavior to that of synapses.
Right now, Greg (Member of HP Labs) is designing new circuits that mimic aspects of the brain.
The neurons are implemented with transistors, the axons are the nanowires in the crossbar, and
the synapses are the memristors at the cross points. A circuit like this could perform real-time
data analysis for multiple sensors.

Memristor will change circuit design in the 21st century as radically as the transistor changed it
in the 20th.

The speciality of Memristor is not just that it can be turned OFF or ON, but, that it can actually
remember the previous state. This is because when the applied bias is removed, the positively
charged Ti ions (which are actually the oxygen deficient sites) do not move anymore, making the
boundary between the doped and undoped layers TiO2 immobile. When we next apply a bias
(positive or neagtive ) to the device , it starts from where it was left. Unlike in the case of typical
semoconductors, such as silicon in which only mobile carrier moves, in the case of memristor
bith the ionic and the electron movement, into the undoped TiO2 and out of undoped TiO2 are
responsible for the hysterisis in its cuurent-coltage charactericstic

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 The HP group is also looking at developing a memristor-based nonvolatile memory. ”A memory
based on memristors could be 1000 times faster than magnetic disks and use much less power”

Potential Applications

1. Nano Scale Nature

The main objective in the electronic chip design is to move computing beyond the
physical and fiscal limits of conventional silicon chips. For decades, increases in chip
performance have come about largely by putting more and more transistors on a circuit. Higher
densities, however, increase the problems of heat generation and defects and affect the basic
physics of the devices.

Instead of increasing the number of transistors on a circuit, we could create a hybrid

circuit with fewer transistors but with the addition of Memristors which could add functionality.
Alternately, Memristor technologies could enable more energy-efficient high-density circuits.

Memristor, was not been seen before because the effect depends on atomic-scale movements, it
only poped up on the nanoscale of William’s devices. Information can be written into the
material as the resistance state of the memristor in a few nanoseconds using few picojoules of
energy-“as good as anything needs to be”. And once written memory stays written even when
the power is shut.

Non-volatile memory applications:

Memristors can retain memory states, and data, in power-off modes. Non-volatile random
access memory, or NVRAM, is pretty much the first to-market memristor application we’ll be
seeing. There are already 3nm Memristors in fabrication now. Crossbar latch memory (see
below) developed by Hewlett Packard is reportedly currently about one-tenth the speed of
DRAM. The fab prototypes resistance is read with alternating current, so that the stored value
remains unaffected. Rosy colored industry analysts state there is industry concurrence that these
flash memory or solid state drives (SSD) competitors could start showing up in the consumer
market within 2 years.

Low-power and remote sensing applications: coupled with memcapacitors and meminductors,
the complementary circuits to the memristor which allow for the storage of charge, memristors

[22]
can possibly allow for nano-scale low power memory and distributed state storage, as a further
extension of NVRAM capabilities. These are currently all hypothetical in terms of time to
market.

Crossbar Latches as Transistor Replacements or Augmentors: The hungry power consumption of

transistors has been a barrier to both miniaturization and microprocessor controller development.
Solid-state memristors can be combined into devices called crossbar latches, which could replace
transistors in future computers, taking up a much smaller area.

Analog computation and circuit Applications:

There was a track of electrical/mathematic engineering which was largely abandoned to

stasis in the 1960s, as digital mathematics and computers rose to dominance. Analog
computations embodied a whole area of research which, unfortunately, were not as scalable,
reproducible, or dependable (or politically expedient in some cases) as digital solutions.
However, there still exist some very important areas of engineering and modeling problems
which require extremely complex and difficult workarounds to synthesize digitally: in part,
because they map economically onto analog models. (see neuromorphic and learning circuits
below.) The early work of Norbert Wiener has already started to be revisited, after the
analog/digital split between him and John vonNeumann. Analog was great, but required
management for scalability beyond what even the extremely complex initial digital vaccum tube
computers could provide. Memristor applications will now allow us to revisit a lot of the analog
science that was abandoned in the mid 1960’s.

2. Replacement of Flash Memory :

The important potential use of memristor is as a powerful replacement for flash memory- the
kind used in applications that require quick writing and rewriting capabilities, such as in cameras
and USB memory sticks. Like flash memory, memristive memory can only be written 10,000
times or so before the constant atomic movements within the device cause it to break down. It is
possible to improve the durability of memristors.

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 3 Replacement for D-RAM :

Computers using conventional D-RAM lack the ability to retain information once they are turned
off. When power is restored to a D-RAM-based computer, a slow, energy-consuming "boot-
up" process is necessary to retrieve data stored on a magnetic disk required to run the
system. The reason computers have to be rebooted every time they are turned on is that their
logic circuits are incapable of holding their bits after the power is shut off. But because a
Memristor can remember voltages, a Memristor-driven computer would arguably never need a
reboot. “You could leave all your Word files and spreadsheets open, turn off your computer,
and go get a cup of coffee or go on vacation for two weeks”.

4. Brain like Systems :

As for the human brain-like characteristics, Memristor technology could one day lead
to computer systems that can remember and associate patterns in a way similar to how people do.

This could be used to substantially improve facial recognition technology or to provide more
complex biometric recognition systems that could more effectively restrict access to personal
information. These same pattern-matching capabilities could enable appliances that learn from
experience and computers that can make decisions.

It is observed that the complex electrical response of synapses to the ebb and flow of
potassium and sodium ions across the membrane of each cell which allows the synapses to alter
their response according to the frequency and strength of the signals. It looked maddeningly
similar to the response a memristor would produce.

This is a very large area of research, in part because a large part of the analog science detailed
above has to do with advances in cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence modeling, machine
learning and recent neurology advances. The ability to map peoples brain activities under MRI,
CAT, and EEG scans is leading to a treasure trove of information about how our brains work.
But modeling a brain using ratiocinated mathematics is like using linear algebra to model
calculus. Simple electronic circuits based on an LC network and memristors have been built, and
used recently to model experiments on adaptive behavior of unicellular organisms.

The experiments show that the electronic circuit, subjected to a train of periodic pulses, learns
and anticipates the next pulse to come, similar to the behavior of the slime mold Physarum
polycephalum periodic timing as it is subjected to periodic changes of environment. The recent
memristor cat brain is also getting a lot of mention. These types of learning circuits find
applications anywhere from pattern recognition to Neural Networks. No more neural pattern
algorythm training on stock market data for the pop-sci investor: now, you can grow your own
neural network! Just add two drops of memristor. Not anywhere close to reality, FYI, even in the
[24]
 30 years range, but very realistic in terms of helping advance the science itself, if not the
consumer market for intelligent brains-in-a-jar.

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 memcapacitor and meminductor are the memdevices in which the capacitance and
inductance respectively depends on the state and history of the system.

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

MEMCAPACITOR MEMINDUCTOR

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 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 decreasing 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.

As 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 Engineering textbooks”.

[26]
REFERENCES:-

 http://memristor.ucmerced.edu/

 http://www.memristor.org/

 http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2008/apr-jun/memristor.html

 http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/the-mysterious-memristor

 http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/04/scientists-prov/

 http://www.memristor.org/news/568/hysteresis-bernoulli-memristors-model

 http://www.memristor.org/news/553/apple-macbook-ssd-flexible-graphene-

memory

 http://www.memristor.org/electronics/522/memristor-crossbar-based-fuzzy-

membership-functions

 http://www.falstad.com/circuit/e-mr.html

 http://www.falstad.com/circuit/e-mr-sine.html

[27]
 Appendix:

A M
Applications · 2, 4, 15, 22, 23
Memcapacitor · 25
Meminductor · 25
Memory · 3, 4, 2, 10, 12, 22, 23, 26, 27
C Memristor · 2, 3, 1, 2, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
26
Capacitor · 3, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11
Chua · See Leon
Construction · 15 R
Resistor · 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 11
H
HP · 1, 2, 8, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26 T
Hysteresis · 12
Titanium · 1, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21

I
W
Inductor · 3, 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9
Working · 16

L
Loen · 1