Ray Stata, Lyric Semiconductor, and probability chips

Stata Ventures is Kaizen interviewee Ray Stata’s venture capital vehicle. It recently provided funding to technology startup Lyric Semiconductor.

Lyric is developing probability chip technology. Traditional chips use binary “yes/no” switches, but probability chips “can accept inputs and calculate outputs that are between 0 and 1, directly representing probabilities, or levels of certainty.” Commercial applications of this technology include better error correction and faster operation for portable flash drives; better prediction of consumer behavior for websites like Amazon (and better product recommendations for customers); and faster, cheaper large scale data processing.

Here’s a video interview with Ben Vigoda and Mira Wilczek, co-founder/CEO and Director of Business Development of Lyric, respectively, in which they explain probability chips:


Read more about Lyric at the New York Times and VentureBeat.

For more about the excellent Ray Stata, here is my extended Kaizen interview with him from last year.