HP's researchers have a new scientific breakthrough they can brag with as they have managed to prove the existence of what was previously been only theorized as the fourth fundamental circuit element in electrical engineering. Expected to spark at least an evolution in memory technology, the "memristor" is set to enable the making of chips that will be able to retain information after they have been powered down, consume far less power than today's solutions and associate information in a manner similar to that of the human brain.

"To find something new and yet so fundamental in the mature field of electrical engineering is a big surprise, and one that has significant implications for the future of computer science," said Williams. "By providing a mathematical model for the physics of a memristor, HP Labs has 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 to be one of the fourth fundamental circuit element, along with the resistor, capacitor and inductor, the memristor could be used to replace conventional DRAMs and provide a more reliable storage solution for data centers. Another potential application of memristor technology could be the development of computer systems that 'remember' and associate series of events in a manner similar to the way a human brain recognizes patterns. This could substantially improve today’s facial recognition technology, enable security and privacy features that recognize a complex set of biometric features of an authorized person to access personal information, or enable an appliance to learn from experience.

Apparently, it took some 37 years to reach this milestone and prove the concept of the memristor so the work of HP's researchers seems nothing short of amazing. Hopefully work on bringing the memristor to market will be a lot faster and will be able to see solutions based on it in the near future.