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Topic: Networking

A few errors could be key to super-efficient computer chips

Summary: A group of university researchers has determined that "inexact" processors could yield huge gains in efficiency.

Sean Portnoy

By for Laptops & Desktops |

"Everyone makes mistakes" might be a nice "words-to-live-by" phrase, but it hardly seems like the path to greater performance from computer chips. Yet a group of university researchers has determined that processors that can tolerate a couple of errors could yield huge gains in efficiency.

The so-called inexact computer chip would be a whopping 15 times more efficient than current CPUs that include error-correcting mechanisms, managing to be faster and less power-hungry. The concept is based around the idea that certain applications can tolerate some mistakes in processing -- image-processing software, for example.

The researchers "pruned" certain circuits out of their chip design to help provide the efficiency boost. Of course, the more errors tolerated, the greater the performance gains, which could limit the real-world applications of the approach.

The inexact chip is initially being promoted for embedded applications, such as for hearing aids. It's also being used for a low-cost tablet in India where classrooms often lack electricity. It will be interesting to see if there's ever a way to harness this approach to mainstream computer chips, where significant performance gains are getting a bit harder to come by. Would there be a way to prune circuits and still deliver the computing experience expected by the typical user? After all, a few errors in the millions of pixels of a digital image is one thing, but you don't want them showing up in your Word document.

[Via The Verge]

Topics: Networking, Hardware, Processors

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18 comments
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  • Stupid.

    The place you don't want errors is in the instruction stream.

    Images already have errors generated by every lossy compression algorithm.

    Unfortunately, these same errors prevent it from being reliable in court.

    Also doesn't work well for facial recognition, or anything needing a positive identification.
    jessepollard
    Reply Vote

    • Doesn't hurt facial recognition

      Neither is having a raw image necessary for court. There is always error even if you don't have lossy compression. Any camera loses information relative to the real image whether film or digital as it is taking the picture. Same with audio and that has never been a problem in court. True, you lose additional information but not necessarily critical information. Most recognition schemes use "hints" which are very very granular and yet this works quite well. Lossy compression does not affect this and may even enhance it. Think of lossy compression as a filter.
      DevGuy_z
      Reply Vote

      • The court thing is right

        I used to work on an imaging team at a big insurance company and we were required to store our images with a very particular lossless compression in a TIF file specifically because the law does not hold lossy compression as reliable.

        But, regarding jessepollard's other statements:

        "The place you don't want errors is in the instruction stream."

        That's not where the errors are. They're in the calculation results from the non-errored instructions. And then, only in specific types of calculations.

        "Images already have errors generated by every lossy compression algorithm."

        True, but also irrelevant.

        "Unfortunately, these same errors prevent it from being reliable in court."

        True.

        "Also doesn't work well for facial recognition"

        False. Facial recognition is already a fuzzy logic affair. Actually, facial recognition is a perfect example of inexactness in computing and would be a great application for these chips.

        "or anything needing a positive identification."

        Definitely not true. When using biometric identification, "positive" is a graduating scale, whether it's voice identification, facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, or gate (walking style) recognition. The inexactness of images and motion from biological creatures makes 100% identification nearly impossible even with chips that produce no errors. Inexact calculations are the core of that type of technology and are perfect applications for these inexact chip technologies. Others would include 3D rendering, stock market prediction algorithms, AI, and many many more.

        Of course, there are plenty of areas in computing where errors are completely unacceptable, but in the areas where errors are not critical, these chips could provide great benefits.
        Software Architect 1982
        Reply Vote

  • The Pentium FPU Flaw

    Isn't this what Intel was trying to do with the original Pentium FPU flaw ; )
    Yeah, that's the ticket!

    racingmustang
    racingmustang
    Reply Vote

    • We are Pentium

      Division is futile. You will be approximated.
      Robert Hahn
      Reply Vote

      • RE: We are Pentium

        OK, you can start your weekend early!

        You may assimilate as many units of the (alcoholic) beverage of choice, as you see fit.
        fatman65536
        Reply Vote

  • Along with GPU's

    We are already seeing that GPU's are being used for massively paralleled processing that is number-crunching intensive. To a certain extent that uses the original idea of having a separate processor for numeric processing (something along the lines of an x87 chip, if I remember correctly).

    Realistically, processors for routine work don't need to be significantly more efficient. So, this would be mainly for high-performance computing. If these "slightly error-prone" processors are that much more efficient, they could be combined with separate processors to handle the math that needs accuracy. The overall combination would probably provide substantial improvement yet with acceptable accuracy.
    Rick_R
    Reply Vote

    • Uh, yeah...

      move the processing "to the cloud", and then it won't matter because it's someone else's problem.... Hmmmm.....
      Willnott
      Reply Vote

  • ERROR ERROR ERROR ! ! !

    OOPS, a minor error allowed all your passwords to be seen to everyone.
    .
    NOPE, ain't gonna work.
    .
    fm-usa
    Reply Vote

  • This is very serious stuff...

    If tolerating errors means my pic of Heidi Klum comes out looking like Shaq - well - this is definitely not good.
    garylavery
    Reply Vote

  • It seems like saying a watch that is broken...

    is more efficient than one that loses a minute a day - the broken watch is correct twice a day, but the slow watch is only accurate once every two years or so.... and the broken watch uses far less power than the slow one. The problem is knowing when the broken one is indeed correct - so how will one know when an inexact processor is correct, or in error? Seems like it would require additional power to detect that.

    What are our kids learning these days, anyway??????? How to "cheat"?
    Willnott
    Reply Vote

    • But...

      Willnott, if the chip is rendering a 3D image for real time game play, a few errors on a few pixels will not affect the game logic and the users will almost certainly not notice it. That's the type of errors they're talking about... not whether or not you're received a head shot in Unreal Tournament, but may errors in how it calculates the blood splatter pattern. Calculating a head shot is important. Calculation accurate blood spatter is not.
      Software Architect 1982
      Reply Vote

      • Head Shot!!

        I miss that game...but I had to get my life and my tendons back ;-)
        seejayjames
        Reply Vote

  • I wonder how aware those Indian children are of the inexact computers

    How come little Sanjay thinks 1+1=3?
    happyharry_z
    Reply Vote

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  • 3+3=7

    3+3=7 well you get it.
    MoeFugger
    Reply Vote

  • This is known already

    "You can always write faster program, if the result doesn't have to be accurate"

    Errors happen in computers anyway. What is necessary is an error-detection and remedy technology, as see in the biological computers.
    danbi
    Reply Vote

  • Interesting!

    Interesting article and I think these chips could do a TON of useful things in a computer, there are many many processes which don't require 100% accuracy, or even close to it. The ones that do, will have it, just like today.

    Maybe it's just a helper chip alongside the main one(s) which gets sent various processing demands that are suited for it, like the graphics or audio manipulation or physics in gameplay mentioned here. For mobile phones maybe it could help with the A-D and D-A conversions? Losing a tiny bit of clarity for voice or video chat probably won't be noticed, and definitely wouldn't be on the scale of network dropouts. For many times the battery life, I'd take that tradeoff any day.

    Clever idea!
    seejayjames
    Reply Vote
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