Resistive memory components the computer industry can't resist

Make way for some new memsistors. For years, the computer industry has sought memory technologies with higher endurance, lower cost, and better energy efficiency than commercial flash memories. Now, an international collaboration of scientists may have solved many of those challenges with the discovery of thin, molecular films that can store information.

Scientists at Yale, the National University of Singapore (NUS), and the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) have produced new "memsistor" devices that last for 1 trillion cycles—far outstripping the endurance of commercial flash memories for computing. A memsistor is an electrical resistor component with memory; it can regulate the electrical current in a circuit, while remembering the level of charge that goes through it.

The discovery is described in a study published Oct. 23 in the online edition of the journal Nature Materials.

"These devices show great potential for applications in computing, especially in neuromorphic and logic circuits," said Yale chemistry professor Victor Batista, a co-author of the study and leader of a research group that included Yale graduate student Adam Matula and Yale postdoctoral student Svante Hedstrom. "The molecular-level understanding of these devices that we have helped generate is unprecedented in a memory device, and this allows us to create design principles for the next generation of devices."