10 ms·
Linear, symmetric, self-selecting 14-bit molecular memristors (2023)
- myrmidon 2y agoTakes me back... There was significant hype around those things when they first managed to build them at scale (~15 years ago), because they were promising for low power, high density persistent storage and are also academically interesting: The "concept" of memristors was explored over 50 years ago (they are passive components that couple electrical charge and magnetical flux, just like a resistor does with current/voltage, a capacitor with voltage/charge or an inductivity with current/flux). But I think the main problem was that they never managed to scale up the clock speeds sufficiently, even though structure size (=> density) was already highly promising from the start. Maybe in a slightly different history with some discoveries in different orders these could have replaced flash memory in SSDs completely. But that whole episode thought me that betting on early technology is hard, and always a risky business, because no matter how promising an approach looks, if it turns out that you can not find the necessary improvements in only a single dimension, then the whole thing is kinda doomed and will probably never be competitive (=> a highly relevant insight especially when speculating about things like novel battery chemistries or the like).
- floating-io 2y agoI remember that too; I was very, very interested, but it never materialized. Very disappointing. That said, I think this is something a bit different, or at least a different application. If my translation of the summary is correct (I'm not very fluent in sciencese), it's basically using them as some kind of matrix multiplier rather than memory. Whether they're making use of power-off data retention at all was unclear to me, but then I just skimmed it. Interesting, but I was really hoping for fast, persistent memory to appear.
- DrBazza 2y agoIs that actually the case? Or have memristors just proven to be a 'boring' technology that's just quietly replaced other bits and pieces that we don't hear about? A bit like graphene was supposed to be this wonder material, and now it's found in the soles of trail and hiking boots.
- myrmidon 2y ago> Or have memristors just proven to be a 'boring' technology that's just quietly replaced other bits and pieces that we don't hear about? As far as I know, they have no application apart from academic toy/reseearch subject right now. And you have to consider that there are a lot of niches for storage technology that they could have taken over (because there is a lot of tradeoffs to make, e.g. latency, bandwidth, persistence, density, power consumption). We might be just a few breakthoughs from those things replacing flash memory in SSDs, or revolutionizing neural-network accelerator hardware, but I am quite skeptical for now. Note: I still believe that this (and other stuff i'm skeptical about) is SUPER worthwhile to research and always a huge uphill battle, simply because we have invested hundreds of billions of dollars into improvements of CMOS technology and processes, and collected over half a century of experience with it... But new tech is to me kinda like a startup-- not every technology is the future, just like not every startup is a unicorn. Investing is still the right move, but you have to be realistic about expectations (which modern media is absolutely not)
- chc4 2y agoI'm under the impression Intel's 3D XPoint/Optane memory was based off the same process used for memristors.
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y agoYes, but they were never able to get the performance to the point where it could be used as regular memory as opposed to storage (SSD).
- mapt 2y agoIIRC, performance was fantastic, but they were never able/willing to match the data density and data cost improvements in stacked-NAND flash, and without forcing themselves into the market at competitive rates, nobody wanted to write applications or design hardware suited to their unique strengths as low-latency caches. There is still, to this day, a numerical niche for these drives, which is being served imperfectly by either normal TLC drives of very large size, SLC cache drives, or DRAM expansion cards connecting to the CPU through a PCIE bus. Just not at the prices they wanted to charge.
- ants_everywhere 2y ago> if it turns out that you can not find the necessary improvements in only a single dimension, then the whole thing is kinda doomed and will probably never be competitive I don't know, we've been working on digital computers since at least the late 1800s. Sometimes technology just takes a while. That does make it hard to gamble on it if the time horizon is longer than you need to make a profit. But I don't think we should convince ourselves that a technology that takes longer than 15 years to become profitable is doomed. If we thought like that we'd still be subsistence hunter gatherers.
- myrmidon 2y agoAbsolutely! For the record: I don't think that memristors are doomed to be useless-- we'll have to find out. My point is just that even with research-tech that sounds absolutely amazing (low power, persistent, high density) you just need to fail on a single dimension for it to basically become irrelevant. This is also why its so easy for media to overhype research results, which (predictably) results in continuous disappointments and loss of trust (of the public) in science reporting and/or even science in general...
- nine_k 2y agoRegarding technology taking time: look at LEDs. - The effect first discovered: 1907. - First prototype device built: 1927. - First commercially viable parts shipping: early 1960s. - Ubiquitous and cheap as an indicator device: 1980s. - Highly efficient, used for lighting: 2010s. The principle never changed along the way. The specific materials changed quite a bit.
- bcrl 2y agoAnd we only have blue LEDs due to the sheer stubbornness of Shuji Nakamura. If you haven't already heard the tale of its development, head over here and enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF8d72mA41M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF8d72mA41M
- cma 2y agoEUV took decades: > To address the challenge of EUV lithography, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories were funded in the 1990s to perform basic research into the technical obstacles. The results of this successful effort were disseminated via a public/private partnership Cooperative R&D Agreement (CRADA) with the invention and rights wholly owned by the US government, but licensed and distributed under approval by DOE and Congress.[3] The CRADA consisted of a consortium of private companies and the Labs, manifested as an entity called the Extreme Ultraviolet Limited Liability Company (EUV LLC).[4] > Intel, Canon, and Nikon (leaders in the field at the time), as well as the Dutch company ASML and Silicon Valley Group (SVG) all sought licensing. Congress denied[citation needed] the Japanese companies the necessary permission, as they were perceived[by whom?] as strong technical competitors at the time and should not benefit from taxpayer-funded research at the expense of American companies.[5] In 2001 SVG was acquired by ASML, leaving ASML as the sole benefactor of the critical technology.[6] >By 2018, ASML succeeded in deploying the intellectual property from the EUV-LLC after several decades of developmental research
- marcosdumay 2y agoThey never promised high-density. Semiconductor memristors were always fated at staying at a much lower density than the same amount of capacitive memory. And that's before you get into the manufacturing issues and the problem that it loses "data" when read. Those things where hyped out of nowhere, with lots of blatant lies making into the popular discourse (like that high-density prediction). I don't even know why, because nobody was making any serious bet on them. They are a very interesting design, that may still get some real-world usage (the manufacturing problems are a showstopper right now), but won't ever compete with flash.
- mikewarot 2y agoI think that Memristors are perfect for use as configuration RAM for FPGAs and FPGA-like things. Something that you want to be able to update, but not frequently, and read all the time. Of course, then the question becomes one of refreshing their state, like DRAM.
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- baq 2y ago> 460× less energy than digital computers The brain is running on 20W of power and it has the best LLM, the best robotics control unit, very good sensor integration and all the other exciting stuff which we* want** AIs to have. I'd rather have that than nuclear powerplants feeding data centers. * overreaching a bit ** also not really true for everyone
- go_elmo 2y agoNit: we take 20w of chemical energy not electrical one like computers, way worse efficiency compared to solar panels Id say
- im3w1l 2y agoOur current society converts chemical energy to electrical, not the other way round. So its the electrical energy user that needs a lossy conversion step.
- tlb 2y agoFossil fuel plants are chemical -> heat -> mechanical -> electrical. The heat -> mechanical step is the inefficient one, sadly limited to ~40% efficiency even with very fancy machinery. Most other conversions can be above 90% efficient.
- pfdietz 2y agoThe efficiency of gas-fired combined cycle power plants can exceed 60% (lower heating value). And their capex is just over $1/W. Combustion turbines are amazing. With a SOFC topping cycle they might approach 70-80% efficiency. SOFC with just a combustion turbine (no steam bottoming) could exceed 60%. Granted, SOFCs are direct chemical->electrical conversion, but their waste heat is very usefully hot. I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that nuclear power plants in the US stopped being built about the same time combustion turbines (by themselves, without the steam bottoming cycle) reached efficiency parity with high temperature steam turbines. (SOFC = solid oxide fuel cell, which operate around 1000 C.) ("Lower heating value" is based on energy that could be obtained burning natural gas to CO2 and water vapor. An additional 10% could be obtained by condensing the water vapor to liquid, this is "higher heating value".)
- trextrex 2y agoThe original pre-print is available at: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3647379/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3647379/v1 which is probably a less spammy source than the ResearchGate link.
- dbcooper 2y agoWhat's wrong with Research Gate?
- trextrex 2y agoWhat value does it provide over linking to the original source? Any website that constantly asks me to login is spammy in by book. It's a for profit website that adds little value other than duplicating information from primary sources and occasionally mangling pdfs with redundant information to advertise themselves.
- SideQuark 2y agoThey also provide a central place to search things, with a richer interface than Google scholar, and have centralized a significant amount of good sources. There's a reason millions of researchers have joined. That you don't find value or know what they provide is no reason others should not learn the value they add.
- p1esk 2y agoThey also show ads: https://www.researchgate.net/marketing-solutions https://www.researchgate.net/marketing-solutions As a researcher I don’t see any value there. I’ll stick with Arxiv, thanks.
- SideQuark 2y agoThat's fine. You also miss all papers not on arxiv. You miss published versions of even the papers on Arxiv (which are often improved versions), and you miss any benefit peer review has on those papers. I use arxiv nearly every day, and also a few places that get things not on arxiv because the majority of papers are simply not there. Arxiv is paid for by universities paying subscriptions, locked in for five years at a time. It's also funded by Simons Foundation (which may not pay forever) and Cornell and many individual donors. Affiliate groups like professional societies and govts pay huge sums to keep it running. Many companies pay 10's of thousands annually to be members. Piggybacking on their money while taking affront at a bigger, more comprehensive service, because they dare post an ad, seems somewhat short sighted, but to each his own. ResearchGate is the largest academic social network, so many use it for that reason. Here's an (2014) Nature article on researcher usage of various sites that may surprise you https://www.nature.com/news/online-collaboration-scientists-and-the-social-network-1.15711 https://www.nature.com/news/online-collaboration-scientists-... Since a significant number of job postings for researchers as well and communication and networking opportunities are widely used on Research Gate, none of which is present on Arxiv, you are simply missing likely useful contacts and tools for your career. And I write this as a researcher for several decades, long before any of these were live. As I said, enough people find value at research gate that millions do pay.
- artemonster 2y agoJust a bit of context: MRAM exists as an IP for long time, but their promise to execute code directly from it didnt really pan out because of speed. So it competes against flash to store the code that is booted into SRAM and it loses there too because of mostly larger area
- cubefox 2y agoI think memristors are technically more closely related to ReRAM (RRAM) than to MRAM. Though ReRAM so far also just unsuccessfully competes against NAND flash.
- artemonster 2y agoOh, yes, a typo. I meant RRAM
- sroussey 2y agoThis was later published in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07902-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07902-2
- aappleby 2y agoThis seems waaaaay too good to be true. What am I missing?