Recent Progress and Patents on Computational Structures and Methods with Memristive Devices

The recent discovery of the first modern prototype of the 4th fundamental circuit element by HP Laboratories turned the attention of both academia and industry to today’s broad classification of resistance switching devices, known as memristive devices and systems. The variety of applications which have been proposed recently, ranging from memory and reconfigurable architectures to neuromorphic learning and computing, is characteristic of the intense developing interest of these novel electronic devices which show excellent scalability, fast switching speed, long retention time and endurance. The primary purpose of this short review is to summarize and discuss a set of recent patents describing the progress towards the implementation of novel computational architectures, comprising memristive elements, and their applications, where the favorable characteristics of memristors and their nonvolatility are exploited.