Revolutionary Chip uses 30 times less electricity

Rice National Media Site Revolutionary Chip uses 30 times less electricity: "In the first real-world test of a revolutionary type of computing that thrives on random errors, scientists have created a microchip that uses 30 times less electricity while running seven times faster than today's best technology. The U.S.-Singapore team developing the technology, dubbed PCMOS [pronounced 'pee-cee-moss'], revealed the results here today at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), the world's premier forum for engineers working at the cutting edge of integrated-circuit design.

Conceived by Rice University Professor Krishna Palem, PCMOS piggybacks on the 'complementary metal-oxide semiconductor' technology, or CMOS, that chipmakers already use. That means chipmakers won't have to buy new equipment to support PCMOS, or 'probabilistic' CMOS. Although PCMOS runs on standard silicon, it breaks with computing's past by abandoning the set of mathematical rules -- called Boolean logic -- that have thus far been used in all digital computers. PCMOS instead uses probabilistic logic, a new form of logic developed by Palem and his doctoral student, Lakshmi Chakrapani."