Silicon chips that are allowed to make mistakes could help ensure computers continue to get more powerful, say researchers.
As components shrink, chip makers struggle to get more performance out of them while meeting power needs.
Research suggests relaxing the rules governing how they work and when they work correctly could mean they use less power but get a performance boost. Special software is also needed to cope with the error-laden chips.
The silicon industry is defined by Moore’s Law, which predicts that the number of transistors that can fit on a given area of silicon, for a given price will double every 18-24 months. This is usually accomplished by shrinking transistors and typically means that processing steadily gets more powerful.
Transistors are tiny switches that are used as the fundamental building blocks of silicon chips.
However, many experts point out that the relentless march of Moore’s Law could stumble when components get so small they become unreliable.
The unreliability – or “statistical variability” – of chips is a problem that many researchers were trying to deal with, said Professor Asen Asenov from the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Glasgow.
Source: BBC Tech News
