Programmable memristor chip offers opportunities for artificial intelligence

Researchers at the University of Michigan have designed the first programmable memristor chip. According to the designers, the chip offers new possibilities for applying artificial intelligence to small devices, such as sensors and smartphones.

A memristor, derived from 'memory resistor', is a resistor with memory. A memristor can remember the value it has, even when a device is switched off. In addition, memristors operate more energy-efficiently and faster than traditional DRAM working memory. In addition, a memristor can not only operate digitally - 0 or 1 - but also in an analog mode due to the fluctuating resistance.

Much research is still being done on the question of whether, and if so how, memristors can be applied in electronics. Professor Wei Lu of the University of Michigan and his colleagues have succeeded in building a combined CMOS-memristor design that is fully programmable. This experimental design has 5800 memristors, but according to the scientists it can grow to millions in a commercial chip design.

To demonstrate the power of the design, the researchers successfully ran three widely used artificial intelligence algorithms on the chip. Moreover, these algorithms run 10 to 100 times faster than on a traditional CPU or GPU. Professor Wei Lu wants to bring the technology to the market with the start-up Crossbar.

Read more at UM.