I’m going to need a deeper explanation before I truly understand “probabilistic” CMOS, but it looks to provide more computational power while using less electricity than traditional Boolean chips:
Silicon transistors become increasingly ‘noisy’ as they get smaller, but engineers have historically dealt with this by boosting the operating voltage to overpower the noise and ensure accurate calculations. Chips with more and smaller transistors are consequently more power-hungry.“PCMOS is fundamentally different,” Palem said. “We lower the voltage dramatically and deal with the resulting computational errors by embracing the errors and uncertainties through probabilistic logic.”
They designed their proof-of-concept chip specifically for encryption:
Palem said PCMOS is ideally suited for encryption, a process that relies on generating random numbers. It’s equally well-suited for graphics, but for different reasons. In a streaming video application on a cell phone, for example, it is unnecessary to conduct precise calculations. The small screen, combined with the human brain’s ability to process less-than-perfect pictures, results in a case where the picture looks just as good with a calculation that’s only approximately correct.