Tech Arena

New Chip Startup Plays the Odds on Probability Processing

Lyric Semiconductor, a spinout from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, announced on Tuesday a new approach to a technology called “probability processing.” Probability processing uses probability bits, which calculate the probability of an event happening. This technology required the company to redesign processors to natively process probabilities from the ground up and to write a new programming language to express probabilities. Sampling of Lyric’s general-purpose programmable probability processing platform is scheduled for 2013.