A new chip could improve error correction in flash memory, and might also lead to more efficient spam filtering and shopping recommendations.
Lyric Semiconductor, a small MIT spinoff, has created an error correction chip that uses a technique called "probability processing" to guess the right answer or solve a problem.
The chip, called LEC, is 30 times smaller in size than current digital error correction technology. That means manufacturers can create higher density chips that offer more storage at lower costs.
"This is not digital computing in the traditional sense," says Ben Vigoda, founder of Lyric Semiconductor. "We are looking at processing where the values can be between a zero and a one."
Error rates in flash-based storage are of concern to both consumers and manufacturers.
"The issue with flash is you get higher and higher bit errors as you move to smaller geometry," says Greg Wong, an analyst with research firm Forward Insights, "so to discern data that is in there you have to use probability type of algorithms."
Today, one in every thousand bits stored in a flash memory comes out wrong when the memory is read. With the next generation of flash memory, the number of errors is expected to approach one wrong bit out of every hundred.
For consumers, this means a music file that they play from their flash storage disk could sound wrong -- or a file could get corrupted. To avoid that, flash memory makers have to use error correction, much of which is currently done using software algorithms.
The problem with software-based solutions is that they use digital signal processing circuits that add to the size of the chip, says Wong.
"This is an area where cost is a very sensitive factor," he says. "So if you can reduce the size of the circuitry, there's a big benefit there."
Despite its tiny size, the Lyric LEC contains "a Pentium's worth of computation," says Vigoda.
Lyric is looking at a big market. ALL NAND-based flash memory will eventually require more advanced signal processing. "That means anything that goes into memory and solid state drives will require probabilistic type of error correction," says Wong.
But in addition to flash memory, the technology has broader applications to certain kinds of computing problems.
Most computers use digital computing, in which data is represented as bits that have just two states: zero or one, with nothing in between. A digital processor that's handed a problem performs many of its operations serially, operating on those binary bits. But in case of applications such as spam filtering, financial modeling or a recommendation engine, the answer to a problem often involves making a guess to find the best fit. In other words, it's about betting on the probability that a decision is the right one.
For instance, consider online shopping where a site recommends other items you may like. The core of the site's recommendation engine relies on a statistical analysis of the probability that you will like a particular item based on items you have purchased before.
Current digital processors can do these kind of calculations, but they require large quantity of processing power and can be inefficient, says Vigoda.
Instead, Lyric Semiconductor says it has designed its chips -- from the gate circuits to the processor architecture and programming language -- to focus on processing probabilities. For instance, instead of the truth table that's used in conventional logic gates, Lyric's gate circuits are represented by a probability equation. And instead of assembly language or C++, programmers need to write software for this chip in a new programming language called PSBL, or Probability Synthesizes to Bayesian Logic.
Though Lyric is starting with an error correction chip, it eventually hopes to create what it calls as a "general purpose probability processor" that can be used for different applications such as web searches and genome sequencing.
Vigoda says he's not betting that regular programmers will learn PSBL (pronounced 'possible'). Instead, he says, Lyric will program the chip for its customers according to their needs. That is likely to make the chip more of an ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) than a general-purpose processor like Intel's.
Lyric says it plans to put its chips into large scale production in the next twelve months.
See Also:
- New Processor Will Feature 100 Cores
- Quantum Technology Promises Wedding Photos From Phone Cameras
- Startup Builds Power-Efficient Servers With Netbook Chips
*Photo: Lyric's LEC error correction chip. Courtesy Lyric Semiconductor
*
