Why Are Memristor and Memistor Different Devices?

Abstract

This paper presents a circuit-theoretic foundation of the “memristor,” and clarifies why it is fundamentally different from a 3-terminal device with a similarly-sounding name called the “memistor.” Here we show that while the memristor is a basic 2-terminal circuit element based on classic nonlinear circuit theory, the memistor is an ad hoc 3-terminal gadget devised for one specific application, and does not qualify as a 3-terminal circuit element because it is impossible to predict its behavior when connected with other circuit elements.