HP says memristor tech at least two years away
updated 09:11 pm EDT, Fri July 13, 2012
HP previously said memristors due for summer 2013
HP's long-promised memristor (memory resistor) technology won't appear in a consumer product until 2014. This according to an HP representative speaking earlier this week at the Kavli Foundation Roundtable. As The Register reports, the company is taking into account the fiscal concerns of its manufacturing partners in deciding when to roll out a commercial product.
Memristors are expected by some to be an eventual replacement for traditional transistors. They differ from current resistors and circuits by inherently storing the history of the information they receive. This would allow for truly "instant-on" computers with no start-up process, as memory would always store its most recent state. The technology is also thought to be likely to reduce power consumption, as computers would not need to reload data.
HP was initially expected to roll out memristor devices in 2013, and the new statement doesn't delay that projection by too much. Depending on HP's manufacturing partners, consumer devices featuring the technology could begin appearing by the summer of 2014. HP has partnered with fabrication company Hynix, and Hynix has to take into account the degree to which memristor technology will cannibalize sales of its traditional memory technologies.
