Memristors for the Curious Outsiders

We present both an overview and a perspective of recent experimental advances and proposed new approaches to performing computation using memristors. A memristor is a 2-terminal passive component with a dynamic resistance depending on an internal parameter. We provide an brief historical introduction, as well as an overview over the physical mechanism that lead to memristive behavior. This review is meant to guide nonpractitioners in the field of memristive circuits and their connection to machine learning and neural computation.Comment: Perpective paper for MDPI Technologies; 43 page

Teaching Memory Circuit Elements via Experiment-Based Learning

The class of memory circuit elements which comprises memristive, memcapacitive, and meminductive systems, is gaining considerable attention in a broad range of disciplines. This is due to the enormous flexibility these elements provide in solving diverse problems in analog/neuromorphic and digital/quantum computation; the possibility to use them in an integrated computing-memory paradigm, massively-parallel solution of different optimization problems, learning, neural networks, etc. The time is therefore ripe to introduce these elements to the next generation of physicists and engineers with appropriate teaching tools that can be easily implemented in undergraduate teaching laboratories. In this paper, we suggest the use of easy-to-build emulators to provide a hands-on experience for the students to learn the fundamental properties and realize several applications of these memelements. We provide explicit examples of problems that could be tackled with these emulators that range in difficulty from the demonstration of the basic properties of memristive, memcapacitive, and meminductive systems to logic/computation and cross-bar memory. The emulators can be built from off-the-shelf components, with a total cost of a few tens of dollars, thus providing a relatively inexpensive platform for the implementation of these exercises in the classroom. We anticipate that this experiment-based learning can be easily adopted and expanded by the instructors with many more case studies.Comment: IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine (in press

Reliable Modeling of Ideal Generic Memristors via State-Space Transformation

The paper refers to problems of modeling and computer simulation of generic memristors caused by the so-called window functions, namely the stick effect, nonconvergence, and finding fundamentally incorrect solutions. A profoundly different modeling approach is proposed, which is mathematically equivalent to window-based modeling. However, due to its numerical stability, it definitely smoothes the above problems away

Reliable SPICE Simulations of Memristors, Memcapacitors and Meminductors

Memory circuit elements, namely memristive, memcapacitive and meminductive systems, are gaining considerable attention due to their ubiquity and use in diverse areas of science and technology. Their modeling within the most widely used environment, SPICE, is thus critical to make substantial progress in the design and analysis of complex circuits. Here, we present a collection of models of different memory circuit elements and provide a methodology for their accurate and reliable modeling in the SPICE environment. We also provide codes of these models written in the most popular SPICE versions (PSpice, LTspice, HSPICE) for the benefit of the reader. We expect this to be of great value to the growing community of scientists interested in the wide range of applications of memory circuit elements

Slime mould memristors

In laboratory experiments we demonstrate that protoplasmic tubes of acellular slime mould \emph{Physarum polycephalum} show current versus voltage profiles consistent with memristive systems and that the effect is due to the living protoplasm of the mould. This complements previous findings on memristive properties of other living systems (human skin and blood) and contributes to development of self-growing bio-electronic circuits. Distinctive asymmetric V-I curves which were occasionally observed when the internal current is on the same order as the driven current, are well-modelled by the concept of active memristors