article_snippet: it took 37 years for our engineering abilities to catch up with that idea: the first memristor was built by Hewlett Packard in 2008.
article_snippet: Simply put, the first memristor could mean the end of electronics as we know the first memristor and the beginning of a new era called "ionics".
article_snippet: the main component of computer chips functions using a flow of electrons, whereas the first memristor couples the electrons with ions, or electrically charged atoms.
article_snippet: But a memristor can remember the amount of charge that was flowing through a memristor, and much like a memory stick a memristor will retain the data even when the power is turned off.
article_snippet: But memristors have another fundamental difference compared with transistors: memristors can escape the boundaries of binary code.
article_snippet: Jennifer Rupp is a Professor of electrochemical materials at ETH Zurich, and Jennifer Rupp's working with IBM to build a memristor-based machine.
article_snippet: Memristors, Jennifer Rupp points out, function in a way that is similar to a human brain: "Unlike a transistor, which is based on binary codes, a memristor can have multi-levels.
article_snippet: Memristors don't require a silicon layer and different materials can be used as a substrate.
article_snippet: After manufacturing the first ever memristor, Hewlett Packard has been working for years on a new type of computer based on this technology.
article_snippet: At the moment, manufacturing costs are still high, but the benefits are worth it: "Memristors operate at a lower power consumption, with a faster speed, and with a higher volume density of information than anything we have based on silicon microchip transistors," Rupp told CNN.
article_snippet: Much like a particle in the realm of physics, the existence of the memristor was theorized long before we could actually build one.
highlights_snippet: The memristor is a new type of electrical component that could revolutionize electronics .
  
highlights_snippet: The memristor was first conceptualized in the 1970s, long before one could even be built .
  
highlights_snippet: Researchers at ETH work with IBM in memristors for future computing devices .
  