Restoring Sanity: The Memristor Test

In this chapter we introduce an unambiguous test to experimentally determine whether a given device is an ideal memristor or not. We demonstrate the test by applying it to resistive random-access memory (ReRAM) cells and the so-called “ $$\Phi $$ memristor.” In both cases, the experimental test clearly shows that, unlike what has been claimed in the literature, these systems are not memristors. Finally, we formulate two conjectures concerning the impossibility of building a model of physical resistance-switching memories based on ideal memristors.