4 ms·

They're definitely not huge right now and I haven't seen any viable paths toward them becoming a big thing any time in the near future. There's barely any work

They're definitely not huge right now and I haven't seen any viable paths toward them becoming a big thing any time in the near future. There's barely any work being put into them relative to other stuff in the field. HP made some big claims years back but have totally failed to deliver anything and I haven't heard anything about the technology in years.

justinlloyd 4y ago
Prior to the pandemic I had the privilege, due to my wife's position, of attending five or so IEEE conferences per year in the subject of microelectronics and got to see a lot the small enhancements. 15 years ago MEMS and SOI was all the rage, and it moved at glacial pace, and "nothing was coming of it." Now you cannot pick up a modern smartphone without having most of those small developments packed inside it. It's frustrating in one way, seeing the cute piglet of a fringe idea entering the pipe, and wondering if it will come to aught, and astounding to finally put the metaphorical sausage of productization in your mouth many years later thinking to yourself "Oh, I had forgotten all about that..." I use the food metaphor because my wife used to work in market research (prior to her career in running 30,000+ attendee conventions and highly technical microelectronics conferences for the IEEE) and those tasty MSG-laden noodles we all devoured on a student's grocery budget took years of refinement through market testing before they became a real product available universally everywhere. ^---^ ( 'o' ) ( u u )
- theamk 4y ago
  More than 20 years ago, I read about new FRAM/FeRAM chip that just got commercialized that was supposed to revolutionize non-volatile storage. And the specs were pretty good, definitely much better that flash. And yet today, nothing came out of it. Sure, you can still buy FeRAM at digikey, and it found a niche or two by itself, but it is tiny, tiny piece of overall storage market. I think that memristor is going to end up as FRAM and not as MEMS. It is cute, but even if it could be executed perfectly, it does not allow anything that more conventional technologies can do (unlike MEMS :) l
  - justinlloyd 4y ago
    I remember FRAM now that you mention it. There's obviously a lot of promising technologies that die through poor marketing, poor adoption, price, better performing or cheaper alternatives. I see potential in memristors but I think the jury is still out on whether it will see marketplace success. I personally think it has huge upside potential but it sounds like both of us have seen all that be for nothing. I think my previous comment carries more weight though, because it has a pig on it.

justinlloyd 4y ago

Prior to the pandemic I had the privilege, due to my wife's position, of attending five or so IEEE conferences per year in the subject of microelectronics and got to see a lot the small enhancements. 15 years ago MEMS and SOI was all the rage, and it moved at glacial pace, and "nothing was coming of it." Now you cannot pick up a modern smartphone without having most of those small developments packed inside it. It's frustrating in one way, seeing the cute piglet of a fringe idea entering the pipe, and wondering if it will come to aught, and astounding to finally put the metaphorical sausage of productization in your mouth many years later thinking to yourself "Oh, I had forgotten all about that..." I use the food metaphor because my wife used to work in market research (prior to her career in running 30,000+ attendee conventions and highly technical microelectronics conferences for the IEEE) and those tasty MSG-laden noodles we all devoured on a student's grocery budget took years of refinement through market testing before they became a real product available universally everywhere. ^---^ ( 'o' ) ( u u )

theamk 4y ago
More than 20 years ago, I read about new FRAM/FeRAM chip that just got commercialized that was supposed to revolutionize non-volatile storage. And the specs were pretty good, definitely much better that flash. And yet today, nothing came out of it. Sure, you can still buy FeRAM at digikey, and it found a niche or two by itself, but it is tiny, tiny piece of overall storage market. I think that memristor is going to end up as FRAM and not as MEMS. It is cute, but even if it could be executed perfectly, it does not allow anything that more conventional technologies can do (unlike MEMS :) l
- justinlloyd 4y ago
  I remember FRAM now that you mention it. There's obviously a lot of promising technologies that die through poor marketing, poor adoption, price, better performing or cheaper alternatives. I see potential in memristors but I think the jury is still out on whether it will see marketplace success. I personally think it has huge upside potential but it sounds like both of us have seen all that be for nothing. I think my previous comment carries more weight though, because it has a pig on it.