Abstract

The memristor technology has a great potential for nonvolatile memory, circuit reconfigurability, and edge computing paradigms. Several such applications rely on the use of dense passive crossbar arrays, which are now becoming commercially available and accessible to researchers. However, experimental measurements on crossbar arrays not only require special caution but also special driving techniques, both for reading and writing of data, while addressing the current sneak-paths problem. This makes highly relevant the development of instrumentation solutions that provide a safe and proper way to experimental work with passive memristive crossbars. In this direction, we present our early design steps towards the development of an instrumentation printed circuit board (PCB) which addresses the characterization and testing of memristive crossbar chips. The PCB will be interfaced through a STM32 microcontroller system and has a PCI socket compatible with crossbar chips sold by Knowm Inc. We present the driving circuitry in detail and LTspice circuit simulation results that verify/quantify the performance of reading/writing processes.