An analysis of the literature shows that there are two types of non-memristive models that have been widely used in the modeling of so-called "memristive" neural networks. Here, we demonstrate that such models have nothing in common with the concept of memristive elements: they describe either non-linear resistors or certain bi-state systems, which all are devices without memory. Therefore, the results presented in a significant number of publications are at least questionable, if not completely irrelevant to the actual field of memristive neural networks.

Abstract: While resistors with memory, sometimes called memristive elements (such as ReRAM cells), are often studied under conditions of periodic driving, little attention has been paid to the Fourier features of their memory response (hysteresis). Here we demonstrate experimentally that the hysteresis of memristive systems can be unambiguously distinguished from the linear or non-linear response of systems without hysteresis by the values of certain Fourier series coefficients. We also show that the Fourier series convergence depends on driving conditions, and introduce a measure of hysteresis. These results may be used to quantify the memory content of resistive memories, and tune their Fourier spectrum according to the excitation signal.

It has been suggested that all resistive-switching memory cells are memristors. The latter are hypothetical, ideal devices whose resistance, as originally formulated, depends only on the net charge that traverses them. Recently, an unambiguous test has been proposed [J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. {\bf 52}, 01LT01 (2019)] to determine whether a given physical system is indeed a memristor or not. Here, we experimentally apply such a test to both in-house fabricated Cu-SiO2 and commercially available electrochemical metallization cells. Our results unambiguously show that electrochemical metallization memory cells are not memristors. Since the particular resistance-switching memories employed in our study share similar features with many other memory cells, our findings refute the claim that all resistance-switching memories are memristors. They also cast doubts on the existence of ideal memristors as actual physical devices that can be fabricated experimentally. Our results then lead us to formulate two memristor impossibility conjectures regarding the impossibility of building a model of physical resistance-switching memories based on the memristor model.