Analog computing is undergoing a resurgence
Analog computing is undergoing a resurgence
bigthink.com
Analog computing is undergoing a resurgence
32 comments
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— with a little help from AI.
I call nullshit.
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As cool as it sound at a glance, I fail to see the case they're trying to build.
And of course, they have to sprinkle a little AI on it.
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New, programmable analog chips that perform basic sound processing aren't retro. The article is worth reading.
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I would like more something like a GPU to become normal, except it'd be an analog unit for kinds of computation vastly more efficient this way, where you don't need determinism. Some trigonometry and signal processing, perhaps even some of 3d graphics.
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Isn't there already a special low-power part of phone chips designed to listen for wake words?
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Definitly exciting for RF to me. Be it 5g, wifi, etc. Hopefully we can get hispeed proccessing for cheaper. Right now the cheapest rf proccessing 5g module ive seen promise in is the bladerf fpga.
32 comments
Relating this to carbon emissions is absurd. Your phone's maximum power consumption is about 25W, of which sensors are a tiny, minuscule fraction. Running your phone at 25W for an entire year would allow you to drive a typical petrol car doing 40mpg for 250 miles on the same energy budget.
Reducing sensor power usage is good, but not for this reason.
There is a connection, but I don't think it's a satisfying one.
There's some thought that neural networks would take less power consumption if they were on analog chips. So yeah, it's for LLMs to get bigger. Reducing CO2 emissions by not doing LLM slop is apparently off the table.
Not to be argumentative, but has this ever been something the consumer market has done with an emerging “core” technology? I don’t see how this was ever realistically on the table.
AI slop is an unfortunate fact of life at this point. If it’s inevitable, we may as well make it as not terrible as possible.
This is how I understood it too.
I'm wondering what combination of features would use 25w on a phone. On flagship models the battery would last less than an hour at that consumption (and might even melt :P).
Your point still stands by the way, sensors take next to nothing in terms of power. I guess the point of the article is perhaps the processing of the signals is more efficient with this hybrid chip? Again though in real terms it's a nothing-burger in terms of power consumption.
The highest power draw phone SoCs are about 16w at peak, but they can only sustain that for a very short time before thermal throttling, certainly not nearly an hour. If you were displaying a fully white image on the screen at full brightness at the same time 25W could be possible. But that's not really a realistic scenario
Plenty of phones only charge at 25W which is why I picked the figure :P
More efficient sensors mean better battery life, which is more likely what this is about.
*gasoline or diesel. You cannot use petroleum as it needs to be refined.
Petrol and gasoline are the same thing, it's just different terminology.
'Petrol' is british for gasoline. No one will be driving around on Vaseline.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/petrol