Page |1

ABSTRACT
Typically electronics has been defined in terms of three
fundamental elements such as resistors, capacitors and inductors.
These three elements are used to define the four fundamental
circuit variables which are electrical current, voltage, charge and
magnetic flux. Resistors are used to relate current to voltage,
capacitors to relate voltage and charge, and inductor to relate
current to magnetic flux, but there was no element which could
relate charge to magnetic flux.

To overcome this missing link, scientists came up with a new

element called Memristor. These Memristor has the properties of
both a memory and a resistor (hence named as Memristor).
Memristor is being called as the fourth fundamental component,
hence increasing the importance of its innovation.

Its innovators say “Memristor are so significant that it

would be mandatory to re-write the existing electronics
textbooks”.

INTRODUCTION
Generally when most people think about electronics, they
may initially think of products such as cell phones, radios, laptops,
computes etc., others, having some electronics background, may
think of resistors, capacitors etc., which are the basic components
necessary for electronics function. Such basic components are
fairly limited in number and each having their own characteristic
function.

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 liking charge and
 Page |2

flux (they defined as time integrals of current and voltage), which

would be the memristor, was still hypothetical at the time.
However, it would be until thirty- seven years later, on
April 30, 2008, that a team at HP Labs led by the scientist
R. Stanley Williams would announce the discovery of the
switching memristor. Based on a thin film of titanium dioxide, it
has been presented as an approximately ideal device.

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 the 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 memristor in a
new type of non-volatile memory which could eventually replace
flash and other memory systems.

NEED FOR MEMRISTOR

A memristor is one of four basic electrical components, joining
the resistor, capacitor and inductor. The memristor short for
“memory resistor” was first theorized by student Leon Chua in
the early 1970s. He developed mathematical equations to
represent the memristor, which Chua believed would balance the
function of the other three types of circuit elements.
 Page |3

The known three fundamental circuit elements as resistor,

capacitor and inductor relates four fundamental circuit variables as
electric current, voltage, charge and magnetic flux. In that we
were missing one to
relate charge to
magnetic flux. That is
where the need for the
fourth fundamental
element comes in. This
element has been named as
memristor.

Image: J. J. Yang/HP Labs

MEMRISTOR THEORY AND ITS

APPLICATIONS
DEFINITION OF MEMRISTOR
“The memristor is formally defined as a two terminal
element in which the magnetic flux фm between the
terminals is a function of the amount of electric charge q
that has passed through the device.”

FIGURE 2 : MEMRISTOR SYMBOL

 Page |4

Chua defined the element as a resistor whose resistance level was

based on the amount of charge that had passed through the
memristor.

MEMRISTANCE
Memristance is a property of an electronic component to
retain its resistance level even after power had been shut
down or lets if remember (or recall) the last resistance it
had before being shut off.

THEROY
Each memristor is characterized by its memristance function
describing the charge-dependent rate of change of flux with
charge.

Noting from Faraday’s law of induction that magnetic flux is

simply the time integral of 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 i.e.,

This equation reveals that memristance defines a linear

relationship between current and voltage, as long as charge does
not vary. Of course, nonzero current implies instantaneously
varying charge. Alternating current however may reveal the linear
dependence in circuit operation by inducing a measurable voltage
without net charge movement – as the maximum change in q does
not cause much change in M.
 Page |5

CURRENT Vs. VOLTAGE CHARACTERISTICS

The new circuit element 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 memristor a similar graph is
a little more complicated as shown in figure.3. It illustrates the
current Vs voltage behavior of memristance.

In contrast to the straight line expected from most resistors

the behavior of a memristor appear closer to that fount in
hysteresis curves associated with magnetic materials. It is notable
from figure.3 that two straight line segments are formed within the
curve. These two straight lines curves may be interpreted as two
distinct resistance states with the remainder of the curve as
transition regions
between these two
states.
 Page |6

Figure.3 : current Vs voltage curve demonstrating hysteretic effects of memristance.

Figure.4 : idealized hysteresis model of resistance Vs. voltage for memristance

switch.

Figure.4 illustrates an idealized resistance behavior demonstrated

in accordance with figure.3 wherein the linear correspond to a
relatively high resistance (RH) and low resistance (RL) and the
transition regions are represented by straight lines.

Thus for voltages within a threshold region (-VL2 < V < VL1 in
figure. 4) either a high or low resistance exists for the memristor.
For a voltage above threshold VL1 the resistance switches from a
high to a low level and for a voltage of opposite polarity above
threshold VL2 the resistance switches back to a high resistance.

WORKING OF MEMRISTOR
 Page |7

Fig.5 (a). Al/TiO2 or TiOX /Al “Sandwich”

The memristor is composed of a thin (5 nm) titanium dioxide

film between two electrodes as shown in figure 5(a) above.
Initially there are two layers to the film, one of which has a slight
depletion of oxygen atoms. The oxygen vacancies act as charge
carriers, meaning that the depleted layer has a much lower
resistance that the non-depleted layer. When an electric field is
applied the oxygen vacancies drift changing the boundary between
the high-resistance and low-resistance layers.

Figure 5(b)
showing 17 memristors in a row

Thus the resistance of the film as a whole is dependent on

how much charge has been passed through it in a particular
direction, which is reversible by changing the direction of current.
Since the memristor displays fast ion conduction at nanoscale, it is
considered a nanoioinc device. Figure 5(b) shows the final
memristor component.
 Page |8

POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS
REPLACEMENT FOR DRAM
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 our word files and spreadsheets open, turn off your
computer, and go get a cup of coffee or go on vacation for two
weeks.

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.

MEMRISTORS FOR NANOSCALE ELECTRONICS

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
 Page |9

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 technology could enable more energy-efficient high-
density circuits.

MEMRISTORS AND ROBOTICS

Most robotic systems include three basic elements - sensors,
actuators, and processors. The sensors detect the surrounding
environment and, depending on the complexity of the robots
design, can include simple sensors such as photodiodes,
microphones, thermistors to detect the basic light, sound, and
temperature or more complex sensors such as imaging sensors,
voice recognition devices, and tactile interfaces. Actuators are a
generic term for motion inducing devices and, when applied to
robotics, often take the form of motors used for translational
and/or rotary motion of the robotic system. A basic problem of
robotics is to find a way to map a set of sensor signals commonly
detected by the robot to appropriate responses by the actuators.
For example, if one were to design a robotic arm simulating a
human arm one could use motors to rotate a plurality of joints with
one joint representing the elbow, one joint representing the wrist,
three joints representing each finger, and two joints representing
the thumb. Assuming an independent motor is used for each joint
a total of 16 motors would be required for this particular design.
If one wanted to provide this robotic hand with the ability to pick
up an object it would be useful to include an imaging sensor for the
 P a g e | 10

robotic system. However, in order for the robotic arm to properly

respond to the detection of an object by the imaging sensor an
additional component is necessary to process the information and
generate the appropriate control signals to the
motors. Conventionally this additional component is either a
microprocessor performing under software or application-
specific circuitry designed for a specific function. However,
software-based control can have reduced reaction times due to the
delay required to transfer instructions between a memory storing
the instructions and the processor. Hardware based solutions may
be faster but are less adaptable to different situations. However,
memristor based robotics may be able to bridge the gap allowing
for both adaptability and quick response times

IMPLEMENTATIONS
SPINTRONIC MEMRISTOR
Researchers have created new types of memristors that rely
on the magnetic properties of electrons, potentially leading to
entirely new kinds of circuits that should be easy to integrate with
existing electronics.

Current flowing through a memristor can alter its electrical

resistance, and it retains that altered state even after the current
is turned off, making it a natural for nonvolatile memory. The
memristor promises the introduction of much tinier circuits,
instant-on computers, and the ability to mimic the function of
neurons in the human brain.
 P a g e | 11

Shortly after the demonstration of memristance, researchers

began looking for this property in Spintronics—a relatively new
branch of electronics itself. Spintronics is at the heart of recent
advances in hard-drive data density and the niche nonvolatile
memory known as MRAM. Whereas electronics works by
manipulating the movement of electrons, Spintronics works by
manipulating a quantum mechanical property of electrons known
as spin. (Imagine the electron as a spinning ball.) Spin is the
property that is responsible for magnetism—materials are
magnetized when a majority of their electrons have their spins
pointing in the same direction. Melding memristors and Spintronics
yields devices whose resistance changes according to the spin of
electrons passing through it, and those devices will remember that
resistance.

In one of the three, resistance is caused by the spin of

electrons in one section of the device pointing in a different
direction than those in another section, creating a ”domain wall,” a
boundary between the two states. Electrons flowing into the device
have a certain spin, which alters the magnetization state of the
device. Changing the magnetization, in turn, moves the domain
wall and changes the device’s resistance.

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
decreases its power consumption. In fact it can be hoped to
combine memristors with traditional circuit-design elements to
 P a g e | 12

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.

At 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
textbooks.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Leon.O.Chua, ‘The Missing circuit element-Memristor’, IEEE
Transactions on circuit theory, vol.CT-18, No.5 September
1971.

2. IEEE journals and magazines

3. ’Electronics for you’ magazine

4. www.memristor.org
5. www.allaboutcircuits.com
6. www.ieee.org

7. www.eetasia.com

8. www.knol.google.com

9. www.hpl.hp.com