Skip to content
Hallway
0:00 / 0:00

#memristor#computerarchitecture#implicationlogic

Finding the Missing Memristor - R. Stanley Williams

The Qualcomm Institute

35K subscribers • 1 video on Hallway

YouTube
  • Recommended by 12 people: 12 on Hacker News.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2010 to 2015.
  • Presented by R. Stanley Williams, HP Labs

Advanced. Deep dive for people who know the field.

133K views16 years ago12 recommendations

HardwareSystems programmingCPUs and computer architectureElectronicsCompilers and interpreters

R. Stanley Williams explains the physics, fabrication, and computational potential of memristors, including their application in non-Von Neumann architectures.

R. Stanley Williams from HP Labs gives a keynote presentation on memristor technology at the UC San Diego Center for Networked System's Winter Research Review 2010.

Why it's here

12 people recommend this

What people say. Engineers recommend this talk for its deep technical dive into memristor physics, implication logic, and future computing paradigms.

pohlon Hacker News • Recommends

On “How will memristors change everything? ”

There's a presentation by R. Stanley Williams linked to in the article, and it is well worth watching. link to this video It has some tidbits I didn't expect. Teaser: "one of the guys in my group has...built a compiler to compile C code using implication logic rather than NAND logic and, interestingly enough, when we play with that the compiled code we get is always more condensed...by about a factor of 3"
View on Hacker News

mbenjaminsmithon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Intel Reveals Neuromorphic Chip Design”

I don't understand why Leon Chua keeps popping up first when memristors are discussed. Williams at HP is the person that made it a reality. Chua postulated the existence of the memristor but as far as I know made no progress on a working example. That's a bit like giving da Vinci credit for the invention of the helicopter. The Williams talk on youtube is really good. He discusses the element itself, its use in memory (as vast amounts of on-CPU memory) as well as the possibility of new CPU architectures based on it: link to this video
View on Hacker News

reitzensteinmon Hacker News • Recommends

On “SSDs cost half of what they did in 2011”

…it directly on top of a CPU are mind boggling. Then when you consider that you can use them as FPGAs for computation instead and dynamically reconfigure them... wow. Memristors are only a year or two away from commercial availability, though it will probably be a while after that until they live up to the hype. We live in exciting times. The talk: link to this video…
View on Hacker News

achilleon Hacker News • Recommends

On “With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer”

I encourage folks to watch this tech talk by HP Research Labs on the discovery of the memristor and implementation details. It goes into the gory technical details, from the low level physics to the construction of the gates, the truth tables, and the high level computation possibilities once chips are assembled in a crossbar package. > link to this video
View on Hacker News

jmpeon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Will 7nm And 5nm Really Happen?”

How i learned to stop worrying and love the miniaturization: link to this video Seriously, watch it. Memristor-tech relies on this kind of miniaturization and can provide a speed boost in several areas in current architectures. Secondly, having worked for semi: there's a lot of conservative force holding back development. We could have had current tech with much less worries than we have now if they didn't respond so allergically to everything that looks a little exotic in the CMOS process, like high-k dielectrics.
View on Hacker News

FD3SAon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Six-State Memristor Opens Door to Weird Computing”

This is an interesting implementation of the memristor, but I still think the real breakthrough will be in the two state memristor 1. Once memristor fabrication technology is mature, we are going to see a massive paradigm shift away from the Von Neumann architecture. All the details are in the linked video by HP's Stan Williams. Definitely worth a watch if you're interested in the future of computing 1. link to this video (start at 38m for future computing implications) EDIT: Another video 2, but a bit more in depth. Recommended if the material in the first was a bit confusing as Stan was short on time to explain some of the details. 2. link
View on Hacker News

modelesson Hacker News • Recommends

On “Get Ready For the Memristor Revolution”

For more technical details try this video of a keynote by R. Stanley Williams: link to this video Submitted as a YC story here: link
View on Hacker News

plasmaon Hacker News • Recommends

On “HP plans to release first memristor, alternative to flash and SSDs in 18 months”

Watch HP research's Stanley Williams describe the memristor and what they are working towards in more detail on YouTube: link to this video
View on Hacker News

InclinedPlaneon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Stack Overflow running short on space”

Here's a useful, but lengthy, talk on the subject: link to this video Memristors look extremely likely to be able to provide non-volatile storage with latency, access speeds, and density higher than existing DRAM and flash. They also look like they can be used to make FPGA-like devices which can approach the speed, power efficiency, and logic density of custom designed ASICs but with extremely fast reconfiguration speed. And those seem to be the less fascinating aspects of memristor technology.
View on Hacker News

kbdon Hacker News • Recommends

On “HP Memristors Will Reinvent Computer Memory "by 2014"”

> Historically, electrical circuits were crafted with three basic building blocks: the capacitor, the resistor, and the inductor. But in 1971, University of California at Berkeley professor Leon Chua predicted the existence of a fourth: the memristor, short for memory resistor. > Then, in May of 2008, HP announced that it had actually built a memristor, thanks to HP Labs Fellow R. Stanley Williams and others working in the company’s research arm. Here's a great presentation from R. Stanley Williams1, via prior discussion at HN2. 1 link to this video 2 link
View on Hacker News

somethingnewon Hacker News • Recommends

On “64 Terabyte RAM computer from SGI”

If you want to see something awesome HP has done "recently" check out this talk on memristors. Other than that I don't know... link to this video
View on Hacker News

mitchtyon Hacker News • Recommends

On “With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer”

What don't you buy about them being the fourth fundamental circuit type? Its mathematically provable, proven in the 60's actually. Here watch this for a decent introduction. link to this video
View on Hacker News

FD3SAon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Neural network chip built using memristors”

The top comment mentions DARPA research, but for those who are actually interested in the theory behind the memristor and its potential applications, here 1 is an excellent resource by the man who discovered the first physical memristor. Furthermore, there is a huge amount of open access journal articles and wikipedia material on memristors. DARPA is nowhere close to the cutting edge, SK Hynix is already tooling ReRAM fabs for mass production. 1. link to this video
View on Hacker News

danmaz74on Hacker News • Mentions

On “With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer”

I read this analogy and immediately started thinking how complicated it would be to use this effect if the diameter is always changing, every time you make your water flow. Then I watched the video posted by achille 1. If I understood the video correctly, the analogy should specify a fundamental thing: The diameter of the pipe only increases or decreases if the pressure differential is very high. You can make your water flow at low pressure without affecting the diameter in any measurable way. This should make using memristors practically much easier. 1 link to this video
View on Hacker News

danmaz74on Hacker News • Mentions

On “With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer”

…it - it has nothing to do with the magnetic flux. It can only be described with the same set of equations, so, it behaves like a memristor, but is not "actually" a memristor that completes the set 2. That is, if I understood the video correctly (but I think I did, as the speaker himself talked about a "trick" in the beginning of the video). 1 link to this video 2 link…
View on Hacker News

danmaz74on Hacker News • Mentions

On “With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer”

…tate, if I understood that correctly. If they can use these low voltages (and low currents) to effectively read the state without altering it, they get incredibly simplified management of the memory, and incredibly low power read operations, which would justify their assertion that their memristors can be packed in 3d without thermal problems. 1 link to this video…
View on Hacker News