Unpredictability in Future Microprocessors

prostoalex writes "A Business Week article says increase in chip speeds and number of transistors on a single microprocessor leads to varying degrees of unpredictability, which used to be a no-no word in the microprocessor world. However, according to scientists from Georgia Tech's Center for Research in Embedded Systems & Technology, unpredictability becomes a great asset leading to energy conservation and increased computation speeds."

Comments

Three cheers!

[Electroly]

Three cheers for entropy!

Re:Three cheers!

[chiok]

Hurrah! Hurra! Hurry!

Re:Three cheers!

[mboverload]

1 + 1 = e2924e9320?

Well...

[Realistic_Dragon]

I'd be a lot more trusting of their results if they had worked it out on a processor with 100% certainty.

Re:Well...

[thpr]

I'd be a lot more trusting of their results if they had worked it out on a processor with 100% certainty.

Think of the potential heartburn for the CEOs and CFOs who might have to sign off the financial statements (ala Sarbanes-Oxley) after the calculations were done using one of these processors... :*)

Soo

[NIK282000]

Will the number of windows errors increase or will they just occur at even more improbable times?

Re:Soo

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you but I have no trouble opening and closing my windows.

Re:Soo

[Zorilla]

You must have never had to ride the bus to school as a kid then.

(God, I hated those little buttons.)

Pbit-chip prospects

[craXORjack]

Whether any Wall Street firms are getting regular briefs on Palem's research, as Intel and IBM (IBM ) are, he won't say. Wall Street doesn't like people blabbering about technology that promises a competitive advantage.

Actually this sounds more useful to Diebold and the Republican National Committee.

Improbability drive?

[mOoZik]

You're sitting at your desk and out of nowhere, bam! You are transported to the edge of the galaxy. Weird.

Re:Improbability drive?

[strider44]

Lol I was thinking of the galaxy song!

<--Excerpt-->
"
Our Galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars;
it's a hundred thousand lightyears side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand lightyears thick,
but out by us it's just three thousand lightyears wide.

We're thirty thousand lightyears from galactic central point,
We go around ever two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
in this amazing and expanding universe!
"

Creds to Eric Idle and Co.

Re:Windows ME did something right

[s-orbital]

Nothing saves more power than a box that has been turned off due windows commiting suicide

Re:YUO FAIL IT?

[chrome]

genius. Pure genius.

looks like Intel's marketing department

[Anonymous Coward]

... outdid themselves in their preparation for the next Pentium FPU fire drill

random numbers, yay

[layingMantis]

so a "random" number could be ...actually random right, as opposed to the now deterministically computed pseudo random numbers....how could this NOT be useful!? The AI ramifications alone are fascinating to imagine...

Please relax.

[Tibe]

"... three to one... two... one... probability factor of one to one... we have normality, Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem. Please relax."

Intel

[TWX]

I'd say that with Intel's various errors over the last fifteen years, like the fourth and ninth digit floating point division errors in the Pentium 60, and the heat throttleback due to normal operating conditions on their newer processors, Intel had done a wonderful job of embracing this new unpredictability technology.

Re:Indeterminate Voltage and Bad Fabrication

[Waffle Iron]

Typically, a 0 is broadcast across a chip as a lack of voltage, and a 1 brodcast as a +5 volts.

1974 called. It wants its CMOS logic signal voltages back.

future predictability

[Anonymous Coward]

Just build in a random-number generator!