HP and Hynix predict death of Flash

HP and Hynix have unveiled next-generation memristor technology based on Resistive Random Access Memory (ReRAM) which could power mobile devices and MP3 players in the future.

The companies have been working together to find more energy-efficient forms of computing, and claim that memristors offer much improved storage capacity.

HP's Data Central team explained in a blog post that ReRAM holds the potential to surpass Flash in terms of affordability, capacity, speed, energy efficiency and endurance.

Stan Williams, a senior fellow at HP and founding director of the Information and Quantum Systems Laboratory, said that the "tremendous" technicians at Hynix will help HP to take memristors "from lab to fab".

ReRAM will replace Flash technology in devices such as mobile phones and MP3 players, thanks to its low power consumption and low volatility, according to Williams.

However, this may be only a short-term gain, as the technology has the potential to replace DRAM and hard drives.

ReRAM has been around since 1971, but HP believes that the technology is now close to realising its promise and appearing in user devices such as smartphones and tablets.

"People have been attempting to make resistive memory for a long time. But because they did not understand that the devices they had were memristors, they were not making good progress," said Williams.

"Once you understand the mathematical framework for memristors, you can design circuits that perform the way they are intended to perform."

Lab tests suggest that this intended performance increases memory reuse and provides a number of other gains.

"Memristor memory chips promise to run at least 10 times faster and use 10 times less power than an equivalent Flash memory chip," said Williams.