[DManA]

You sound knowledgeable on the subject. If there was such a need for this device, couldn’t it have been simulated with a circuit containing active devices?

[spunkets]

This device is used to construct diode logic arrays. A ROM could be constructed with diodes before, but those aren't efficient. This device is capable of being reconfigured, so it's a read/write device, and the characteristics of the diode apparently allow for efficiency. That efficiency allows for large scale integrations that weren't possible with normal diodes. Diodes are a passive device...

"couldn’t it have been simulated with a circuit containing active devices?"

Memory constructed with active devices usually requires some sort of power source, like a battery, to maintain the logic state of the gate array. Memory sticks and cards don't though. In those devices and in these, there's a capacitance present in each element of the array that holds the logic state of each gate. The key features of these devices is a nanoscale device with an ionic capacitance which allows for the creation of an electronic diode. The sticks and cards with active devices have larger scale elements and a capacitor associated with each active element to hold the logic state of the gate.

[ThePythonicCow]

couldn’t it have been simulated with a circuit containing active devices?

Well, logically, yes. Just as the engine in my modest car could be simulated with 100 horses. Though I still haven't figured out how to get 100 horses to go faster than 10 or 20 miles per hour, and they seem to want to eat even when I'm not driving anywhere.

... and they wouldn't all fit under the hood of that little car.