Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
SEMINAR
ON
Memristors
Submitted by
SHISHIR S BELUR Reg No.1PI09TE089
In partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of degree in Bachelor of
Engineering in Telecommunication for the academic session Aug Dec 2011
Carried out at
PESIT, Bangalore
Under the guidance of
Ms. Bharati V Kalghatgi
Lecturer
Dept. of TE
PESIT, Bangalore
In the academic session AugDec 2011
P E S INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
100 Feet Ring Road, BSK III Stage, Bangalore - 85
(An Autonomous Institute under VTU, Belgaum)
education for the real world
II
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the seminar entitled Memristors is a bonafide
work carried out by
Shishir S Belur Reg. No.: 1PI09TE089
at PESIT, Bangalore
in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of degree in
Bachelor of Engineering in Telecommunication of Visveswaraiah
Technological University for the academic session Aug Dec 2011.
Signature of the seminar Guide Signature of the HOD
(Name & Designation of the faculty) (Name & Designation of HOD)
III
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank the faculty of the Department of Telecommunication,
PESIT for having given me this opportunity to present a seminar on
'Memristors', whose guidance, advice and assistance helped formulate and
present this seminar. My special thanks to Ms. Bharati.V.Kalghatgi for having
guided me all through my efforts but for which this would not have fructified.
IV
PAGE INDEX
ABSTRACT 1
1. INTRODUCTION 2
2. MEMRISTOR THEORY
2.1. ORIGIN OF THE MEMRISTOR 4
2.2. DEFINITION OF A MEMRISTOR 5
2.3. WHAT IS MEMRISTANCE 5
2.4. PROPERTIES OF A MEMRISTOR
2.4.1. -q CURVE 7
2.4.2. CURRENT-VOLTAGE CURVE 7
3. MODEL OF THE MEMRISTOR FROM HP LABS 9
3.1. LINEAR DRIFT MODEL 10
4. BENEFITS OF USING MEMRISTORS 14
5. RESULTS AND SIMULATIONS
5.1. SIMULATION RESULTS USING SPICE MODEL 15
6. POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS OF MEMRISTOR
6.1. TWO STATE CHARGE CONTROLLED MEMRISTOR 18
6.2. MEMRISTOR MEMORY 18
6.3. BASIC ARITHMETIC OPERATIONS 19
7. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH
7.1. CONCLUSION 22
7.2. FUTURE RESEARCH 22
8. BIBLIOGRAPHY 24
V
FIGURE INDEX
Page No.
Figure 1 about four basic circuit elements 3
Figure 2 about the three fundamental circuit elements 4
Figure 3 about the symbol of a memristor 5
Figure 4 about V-I characteristics of a memristor 8
Figure 5 about HP memristor 9
Figure 6 about voltage applied to a memristor 15
Figure 7 about current through a memristor 16
Figure 8 about charge-flux curve of a memristor 16
Figure 9 about current-voltage curve for f=1 Hz 16
Figure 10 about current-voltage curve for f=1.5 Hz 17
Figure 11 about current-voltage curve for f=2 Hz 17
Figure 12 about adjusting the memristance 19
Figure 13 about various arithmetic operations 21
Figure 14: Circuit symbols for memcapacitor and meminductor 23
1
ABSTRACT
Since the dawn of electronics, we've had only three types of circuit
components-resistors, inductors and capacitors. But in 1971, UC Berkeley
researcher Leon Chua theorized the possibility of a fourth type of component,
one that would be able to measure the flow of electric current in his paper
Memristor-The Missing Circuit Element.
The three fundamental circuit components- resistors, inductors and
capacitors are used to define four fundamental circuit variables which are
electric current, voltage, charge and magnetic flux. Resistors are used to
relate current to voltage, capacitors to relate voltage to charge and inductors
to relate current to magnetic flux. But there was no element which could relate
charge to magnetic flux. This lead to the idea and development of memristors.
Memristor is a concatenation of memory resistors. The most notable
property of a memristor is that it can save its electronic state even when the
current is turned off, making it a great candidate to replace today's flash
memory. An outstanding feature is its ability to remember a range of electrical
states rather than the simplistic "on" and "off" states that today's digital
processors recognize. Memristor-based computers could be capable of far
more complex tasks.
HP has already started produced an oxygen depleted titanium
memristor.
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1. INTRODUCTION
In circuit theory, the three basic two-terminal devices namely the resistor,
the capacitor and the inductor are well understood. These elements are defined
in terms of the relation between two of the four fundamental circuit variables,
namely, current, voltage, charge and flux. The current is defined as the time
derivative of the charge. According to Faradays law, the voltage is defined as
the time derivative of the flux. A resistor is defined by the relationship
between voltage and current, the capacitor is defined by the relationship
between charge and voltage and the inductor is defined by the relationship
between flux and current. Out of the six possible combinations of the four
fundamental circuit variables, five are defined. In 1971, Prof. Leon Chua
proposed that there should be a fourth fundamental circuit element to set up
the relation between charge and magnetic flux and complete the symmetry as
shown on the next page in Fig. 1.
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Fig.1: Four basic circuit elements
Prof. Leon Chua named this the memristor, a short for memory resistor.
The memristor has a memristance and provides a functional relation between
charge and flux. In 2008, Stanley Williams, at Hewlett Packard, announced the
first fabricated memristor.
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4
2. MEMRISTOR THEORY
2.1 Origin of the Memristor
There are four fundamental circuit variables in circuit theory. They are current,
voltage, charge and flux. There are six possible combinations of the four
fundamental circuit variables. We have a good understanding of five of the
possible six combinations. The three basic two-terminal devices of circuit
theory namely, the resistor, the capacitor and the inductor are defined in terms
of the relation between two of the four fundamental circuit variables. A
resistor is defined by the relationship between voltage and current, the
capacitor is defined by the relationship between charge and voltage and the
inductor is defined by the relationship between flux and current. In addition,
the current is defined as the time derivative of the charge and according to
Faradays law, the voltage is defined as the time derivative of the flux. These
relations are shown in Fig. 2.
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Fig.2: The three circuit elements defined as a relation between four circuit variables
2.2 Definition of a Memristor
Memristor, the contraction of memory resistor, is a passive device that
provides a functional relation between charge and flux. It is defined as a two-
terminal circuit element in which the flux between the two terminals is a
function of the amount of electric charge that has passed through the device.
Memristor is not an energy storage element. Fig. 3 shows the symbol for a
memristor.
Fig.3: Symbol of the memristor
A memristor is said to be charge-controlled if the relation between flux
and charge is expressed as a function of electric charge and it is said to be flux-
controlled if the relation between flux and charge is expressed as a function of
the flux linkage.
2.3 What is Memristance?
Memristance is a property of the memristor. When charge flows in a direction
through a circuit, the resistance of the memristor increases. When it flows in
the opposite direction, the resistance of the memristor decreases. If the applied
voltage is turned off, thus stopping the flow of charge, the memristor
Memristors
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remembers the last resistance that it had. When the flow of charge is started
again, the resistance of the circuit will be what it was when it was last active.
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:
where Q is defined by
and is defined by
The variable ("magnetic flux linkage") is generalized from the circuit
characteristic of an inductor. The symbol 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) 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.
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
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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).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.
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, I
2
R
As long as M(q(t)) varies little, such as under alternating current, the
memristor will appear as a constant resistor.
2.4 Properties of a Memristor
2.4.1 -q Curve of a Memristor
The -q curve of a memristor is a monotonically increasing. The memristance
M(q) is the slope of the -q curve. According to the memristor passivity
condition, a memristor is passive if and only if memristance M(q) is non-
negative. If M(q) 0, then the instantaneous power dissipated by the
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memristor,
where
and
are on-state and off- state resistances; and q(t) is the total
charge passing through the memristor device.
3.1 Linear Drift Model
Let us assume a uniform electric field across the device. Therefore, there is a
linear relationship between drift-diffusion velocity and the net electric field.
The state equation can be written as
Integrating this gives,
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where
In a uniform field D=
. In this case,
. Thus,
If
then,
The amount of charge that is passed through the channel over the
required charge for a conductive channel is given as
, then
Substituting
, we get
If we assume that the initial charge
, then
and
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Where
and
. Thus the
Memristance at a time t is given by
,
Where
. When
>>
.
Substituting this in , when
we get,
Since
, the solution is
For
If
The current-voltage relationship in this case is
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This shows the inverse-square relation between memristance and TiO2
thickness, D. Thus, for smaller values of D, the memristance shows improved
characteristics. Nowadays, memristance becomes more important for
understanding as the dimensions of electronic devices are shrinking to
nanometre scale.
Memristors
14
4. BENEFITS OF USING MEMRISTORS
The advantages of using memristors are as given below:
It provides greater resiliency and reliability when power is interrupted
in data centers.
Memory devices built using memristors have greater data density
Combines the jobs of working memory and hard drives into one tiny
device.
Faster and less expensive than present day devices
Uses less energy and produces less heat.
Would allow for a quicker boot up since information is not lost when the
device is turned off.
Operating outside of 0s and 1s allows it to imitate brain functions.
Eliminates the need to write computer programs that replicate small
parts of the brain.
The information is not lost when the device is turned off.
Has the capacity to remember the charge that flows through it at a given
point in time.
A very important advantage of memristors is that when used in a device, it can
hold any value between 0 and 1. However present day digital devices can hold
only 1 or 0. This makes devices implemented using memristors capable of
handling more data.
Memristors
15
5. RESULTS AND SIMULATIONS
5.1 Simulation Results Using SPICE model
For this simulation, the width D of the TiO2 film is considered to be 10 nm
and the dopant mobility
=1K,