Binary is the past, Korean researchers develop ternary semiconductor tech

Hasn’t this style of computing been attempted previously by the soviets, why hadn’t it caught on previously? From my reading of the article it’s making the claim that as semiconductors become smaller, power leakage becomes more of a concern and the major breakthrough here is that ternary logic semiconductors would have an inherently better energy efficiency as it naturally stores more information. Has power leakage become enough of a concern that it makes development of these semiconductors more worthwhile?

Stopped right here:

"For example, to express the number 128 in the current binary system, 8 "bits" will be required. With the ternary system, only 5 "trits" will be required."

Does that mean 8 bits != 5 trits? What is the 8bit eqivalent, 8 trits?

Cool to see an effort being made to progress semiconductor technology.