Probability Chip

That is quite the thesis.

Here's a nice presentation from him that has diagrams of how the basic logic circuits are built up using this approach:

http://cba.mit.edu/presentations/03.09.Vigoda.ppt

The founder's thesis mentions that they use a linearizer in their analog circuit, but all that does is give the same precision over the entire logical value range from 0 to 1 (by that I mean the same amount of voltage swing equals the same amount of "logic value change" anywhere in the range).

I suppose they could use a "non-linearizer" to put more of the precision near 0 and 1, but it would come at the expense of precision in the middle. The less voltage swing is involved, the more susceptible you are to noise from various sources.

I think it is likely we will see more of these. But this probability chip sounds more like an analog computer than what D. E. Shaw has done.

The Lyric web site says that they "model relationships between probabilities natively in the device physics", where D. E. Shaw's Anton chip sounds like it uses traditional logic gates the same way a GPU does.

P.S. Sorry, I downvoted you by accident -- I meant to upvote you.

You're already seeing domain specific chips, but they're in the form of a FPGA rather than an ASIC. If it can be implementation with traditional gates, a FPGA is the way to go for low to medium volume.

While Lyric may incorporate classic gates in their design, it also sounds like the heart of their technology uses something different from classic gates.

Domain-specific chips is a cyclical trend. They come and go; at some times they have advantages, and at others they don't. (Remember Lisp machines? Good initially but vastly outperformed by the end of their lifespan.) See for example the classic 'wheel of reincarnation' paper on graphics: http://cva.stanford.edu/classes/cs99s/papers/myer-sutherland...

The fundamental problem as I see it is that any domain-specific chip will receive a tiny fraction of R&D and economies of scale and amortization that a general purpose one will, and so its advantage is only temporary. As long as Moore's law is operating, this will be true.

There's a single-quote missing in your link after Hitchhiker and before the letter s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_in_The_Hitchhiker + ' + s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy (looks like HN comment filters it out)

wouldn't starting just 6 months ago be a bit late in any case?

Sure, if you can represent your problem using probabilities :)

That said, I'm more excited about the use of Lyric's technology in ECC memory. I'm skimming through Vigoda's thesis, and it seems that another very interesting application ought to be making even lower-power mobile backend chips.

Looks like they check the referrer and redirect you to the original article :(