Rice University (02/08/09) Ruth, David
Rice University scientists have developed a microchip that runs seven times faster and uses 30 times less power than existing chip technology. Rice professor Krishna Palem says the chip’s technology, dubbed probabilistic complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (PCMOS), builds on the CMOS technology already used by chip manufacturers, which means chipmakers will not have to buy new equipment to produce PCMOS chips. Palem says PCMOS uses probabilistic logic, a new form of logic developed by Palem and doctoral student Lakshmi Chakrapani. “A significant achievement here is the validation of Rice’s probabilistic analogue to Boolean logic using PCMOS,” says Intel’s Shekhar Borkar. “Coupled with the significant energy and speed advantages that PCMOS offers, this logic will prove extremely important because basic physics dictates that future transistor-based logic will need probabilistic methods.” Silicon transistors become noisy as they get smaller, and engineers have solved this problem by increasing the operating voltage to overpower the noise, making smaller transistors more power-hungry. PCMOS lowers the voltage and deals with noise and computational errors by embracing the errors and uncertainties using probabilistic logic, Palem says. The PCMOS prototypes are application-specific integrated circuits specially designed for encryption. The researchers plan to follow up their proof-of-concept work on encryption with proof-of-concept tests on microchips for cell phones, graphics cards, and medical implants.
For more information please visit: http://www.cpccci.com
Tags: CMOS, Encryption, Intel, Microchip
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