HP Claims Data Storage Breakthrough

HP researchers claim to have made a computer science breakthrough with potentially wide-ranging implications for storage systems.

In a paper published in todays issue of the journal Nature, a team from the vendor’s Information and Quantum Systems Lab described their research into a new form of computer memory, which could eventually replace traditional DRAM.

Unlike DRAM-based systems, which lose the ability to retain information once their power is turned off, HP claims to have developed circuitry capable of retaining information even after losing power.

Dubbed the “memristor," the microscopic device is actually a 50-nanometer crossbar switch, which, unlike DRAM, does not require power-intensive reboots.

“The wonderful thing about this is that, if you turn them off, [the information] just stays there, it is non-volatile,” says HP spokesman David Harrah.The vendor has built a number of memristor circuits in its research labs and is already touting the technology as the potential cornerstone of low-power computers and storage systems.

”By providing a mathematical model for the physics of a memristor, we have made it possible for engineers to develop integrated circuit designs that could dramatically improve the performance and energy efficiency of PCs and data centers,” said Stanley Williams, director of HP’s Quantum Systems Lab, in a statement. “To find something new and yet so fundamental in the mature field of electrical engineering is a big surprise.”

The memristor has even been described as the fourth “missing” element in electrical engineering -- after the resistor, the capacitor, and the inductor. The potential existence of this technology was first identified by Berkeley academic Leon Chua in 1971, although it was not until the advent of nanotechnology that it became a reality.

”They don’t work very well until you get to the nano level,” said HP’s Harrah, hinting that the memristor could go even smaller than 50 nanometers.

Although the technology is still in its infancy, HP is already touting memristor as a good fit for "cloud" computing, which requires an infrastructure of hundreds or even thousands of power-hungry servers and storage systems.There is certainly a market for this type of technology. Vendors that have already thrown their weight behind the cloud computing model include Amazon, IBM, Yahoo, and EMC, which recently bought cloud computing startup Pi Corp.

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