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A Microprocessor Based on Bayes’ Theorem

In class we talked about Bayes’ Theorem, and demonstrated how immensely useful it is for calculating probabilities, predicting behavior, and determining the effectiveness of tests. The people at Lyric Semiconductor have taken Bayes’ Theorem to a whole new level, by creating a processor that does calculations using probabilities instead of 1’s and 0’s. Normal processors use NAND gates, which take in a 1 and a 0 and output a 1 or a 0, whereas these new processors that Lyric has created use Bayesian NAND gates. These new gates take in two probabilities and output a new probability that they compute with Bayes’ Theorem.

The article says that the current projected use for these new processors is in solid state hard drives. Data reading and writing on flash storage devices is very error prone, with 1 in 1000 bits being read incorrectly. Because of this, solid state drives need error checkers to find and correct these mistakes, and this is a probabilistic task. It is difficult to do this statistical calculation with digital logic, so naturally a probabilistic processor would be much better suited. When Lyric’s processors are used instead of conventional processors for this error checking, they use a thirtieth of the space and a twelfth of the energy.

It is great that these processors can increase the size and efficiency of solid state drives, but there are many more potential uses as well. Many of the tasks that we ask computers to do for us on a daily basis are probabilistic in nature, so it would certainly make sense to solve these problems with a processor specifically designed to handle probabilities. This could make things like analyzing and extrapolating huge pools of data immensely faster. The government also sees potential defense applications in such a processor, like restoring distorted radio signals and improving the vision and object recognition of artificial intelligence. It’s amazing that 300 years later, we are still finding new and powerful ways to use Bayes’ theorem, and there will certainly be even more discoveries to come.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/420257/a-new-kind-of-microchip/

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