China has begun mass production of next-generation processors based on molybdenum disulfide instead of traditional silicon semiconductors[1]. According to Professor Li Hongge’s team at Beihang University, these chips merge binary and stochastic logic to achieve better fault tolerance and power efficiency for applications like touch displays and flight systems[2].
The breakthrough came through developing a Hybrid Stochastic Number (HSN) system that combines traditional binary with probability-based numbers[2:1]. This innovation helps overcome two major challenges in chip technology - the power wall from binary systems’ high energy consumption, and the architecture wall that makes new non-silicon chips difficult to integrate with conventional systems[2:2].
Silicon isn’t the cheapest, sand is. The manufacturing price of the silice mono crystal is high and very similar of that from mono crystal fabrication of any other substance. Artificial diamonds as raw material isn’t much more expensive, used in the industry since a long time, manufactured in mass for cutting tools, drills, abrasive material…, nothing to do with the ones for jewelery.