'Inexact' Chips Save Power By Fudging the Math

Barence writes "Computer scientists have unveiled a computer chip that turns traditional thinking about mathematical accuracy on its head by fudging calculations. The concept works by allowing processing components — such as hardware for adding and multiplying numbers — to make a few mistakes, which means they are not working as hard, and so use less power and get through tasks more quickly. The Rice University researchers say prototypes are 15 times more efficient and could be used in some applications without having a negative effect."

Comments

Turtles all the way down

[agentgonzo]

They could be useful in a few small circumstances, but for the vast majority of cases, I'd be interested in how a speed payoff is going to be beneficial given you don't know whether you got the correct answer. You could run a check to see whether it's correct, but then you can't trust the check to give you the right answer either... so you could run a third check...