The fundamental passive components of electronics are the resistor, the capacitor, the inductor, and the oscillator, right? Actually, no, oscillators aren’t considered fundamental components because they aren’t linear. Resistors, capacitors, and inductors are also irreducible. That is, you can’t combine other passive components to model them unlike, say, a potentiometer. In the last few decades, though, we’ve heard of another fundamental component — the memristor. [Isaac Abraham] asserts, though, that the memristor isn’t a new fundamental component, but just an active device.
To support that premise [Isaac] builds a periodic table of devices showing how components map to changing voltages based on the time-varying property of charge. This shows that all the basic relationships are filled and that memristor actually covers a composition of passive components. This is similar in concept to [Strukov’s] diagram implying that a memristor is the fourth quadrant of a space defined by charge vs flux. However, using the properties of this periodic table [Isaac] argues against the fundamental nature of the memristor.
Of course, he isn’t arguing that the memristor doesn’t exist. He simply states that they are composites of nonlinear resistors, and thus don’t qualify as a fundamental component. From our point of view, we don’t really care. We use a lot of components every day that aren’t fundamental. But if you are the pedantic sort, you might find this an interesting read.
If you need to remember what a memristor is first, have a look at this. Of course, some of this depends on just how you define passive and fundamental.
No comments:
Post a Comment