HP's deal for next-gen microchips

Hewlett-Packard has found an ally to take a breakthrough research project of HP's and build the technology into computer chips.

HP is partnering with Korean memory chip maker Hynix Semiconductor to make chips that contain memristors. Memristors are a newly discovered building block of electrical circuits.

HP built one in 2008 that confirmed what scientists had suspected for nearly 40 years but hadn't been able to prove: that circuits have a weird, natural ability to remember things even when they're turned off.

Memristors could be valuable for memory chips, such as allowing a personal computer to remember things about a user's session long after the battery dies.

The first products could come within 3 years.

- AP