Hewlett-Packard Co. 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 Inc. 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.