'Memristor' electronics could be future for integrated devices

Engineers at UCL created a phase-changing memresitor device entirely in silicon that can operate at ambient conditions.

‘We’re reaching the limits of what the current generation of flash technology can do both in limits of scaling and in reliability — as you make them smaller you start having problems trying to dissipate heat from the system,’ said Dr Tony Kenyon, UCL Electronic and Electrical Engineering.

Although a number of novel competing technologies have been proposed, devices based on memory resistors have a emerged as an early leader.

In these ‘memristor’ devices, resistance changes depending on how much current has passed through it. They need just a thousandth of the energy and are around a hundred times faster than standard flash memory chips.

However, previous memristor devices have used expensive materials that require a vacuum to operate effectively.

‘We can control the switching in ambient conditions and it’s all purely in silicon,’ said Kenyon. ‘There are some people who work on resistive switching by diffusing metals in silicon. We don’t do any of that, it’s inherent in the material itself.’