Adnan Mehonic

Memristors can be a new and more efficient building block of modern computers.

Memristors are a novel type of electric circuit element that were first theorized to exist in 1971. In 2008, researchers at Hewlett-Packard identified them for the first time, in nano­devices made from titanium dioxide, but the technology has not replaced flash memory as initially predicted. 

Resistors are elements of a circuit that control the flow of electric current. A memristor, as its name suggests, is like an adjustable resistor with memory. Turn the power off, and a memristor “remembers” the most recent resistance it had. That holds the promise of faster, more efficient chips that integrate memory with logic.

Adnan Mehonic is developing memristors out of silicon oxide, the material most commonly used in computer chips. His most straightforward goal is to make dense, low-power, high-speed memory. More ambitiously, he is using the physics of memristors to implement in-memory computing and brain-like functionalities for future neuromorphic systems. 

Among other applications, memristors could greatly improve the energy efficiency of AI systems, proponents say. “Crossbar arrays” of memristors, says Mehonic, could perform deep-learning tasks using one-500th as much energy as current hardware. A startup he cofounded concluded a $1.9 million financing round in March.