Re:Probabilistic processors possibly pack potent punch
by aidenn0 on Wednesday March 30, 2011 @01:46AM
(#2386020)
I can see it as potentially useful in mobile devices, since it sounds like it's a trade-off of engineering time (analog circuits are much harder to get right) vs. power consumption, and mobile has such large volume that engineering costs can become a rounding-error.
I'm slightly concerned about per-unit cost since I'm assuming testing yields is going to be much harder. Digital behaves in well-understood ways across temperature and voltage ranges; analog is not as well understood.
[edit]
I see they are claiming 30x smaller footprint, which will help, since they can be very aggressive about rejecting chips, but still I wonder if fabs that mainly do digital are setup to test something like this.
I'm slightly concerned about per-unit cost since I'm assuming testing yields is going to be much harder. Digital behaves in well-understood ways across temperature and voltage ranges; analog is not as well understood.
[edit] I see they are claiming 30x smaller footprint, which will help, since they can be very aggressive about rejecting chips, but still I wonder if fabs that mainly do digital are setup to test something like this.