Quarternary Logic

[Robotnik]

Hey guys,
I was thinking of a new concept whereby we could
square the amount of information stored in a bit. Currently, the
information stored in a bit is whether the bit is on or off. To put it
simply, the information has a base (remember, logarithmic base) of 2.
If we could develop a mechanism whereby the base can be increased to 3
or 4, the amount of information stored can increased to more than
1.584 times in the case where the base is increased to two or 2
(twice ) if the base is increased to 4.
This can be accomplished by sensitizing 3(4 if
possible) voltage levels instead of the two currently. Your comments
are invited.

 

[Tim Wescott]

On Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:12:01 -0700, Robotnik wrote:

Hey guys,
I was thinking of a new concept whereby we could
square the amount of information stored in a bit. Currently, the
information stored in a bit is whether the bit is on or off. To put it
simply, the information has a base (remember, logarithmic base) of 2. If
we could develop a mechanism whereby the base can be increased to 3 or
4, the amount of information stored can increased to more than 1.584
times in the case where the base is increased to two or 2 (twice ) if
the base is increased to 4.
This can be accomplished by sensitizing 3(4 if
possible) voltage levels instead of the two currently. Your comments are
invited.

The concept has been around since digital computing was invented. For
computation it seems to take less circuitry to do everything in binary
than to try to have comparators to distinguish more than two levels, and
definitions for logic to do anything with these levels.

At least some flash memory chips store in multiple levels, but I couldn't
tell you which ones (other than Intel pushed it hard a decade ago when
they first came out with it).

--
Tim Wescott
Control systems and communications consulting
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Need to learn how to apply control theory in your embedded system?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" by Tim Wescott
Elsevier/Newnes, http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html