On 18 May 2014, at 21:16, [email protected] wrote:
Does this computer architecture assume not-comp?
No. Elementary arithmetic emulates n-synchronized oscillators for all
n, even infinite enumerable set of oscillators. You would need a
continuum of oscillators, with an explicit special non computable
hamiltonian. Today, there is nothing in nature which would threat
comp, except the collapse of the wave packet in theories where this is
a physical phenomenon. Even in that case, it would be a computation
with oracle, and not change much of the consequences. Anyway, I am not
sure I can make sense of the wave collapse being a physical
phenomenon, and even less that this play a role in the brain
computation.
Bruno
15046Synchronized oscillators may allow for computing that works
like the brain
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richard ruquist
May 15 2:09 PM
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Synchronized oscillators may allow for computing that works like the
brain
May 15, 2014
This is a cartoon of an oscillating switch, the basis of a new type
of low-power analog computing (credit: Credit: Nikhil Shukla, Penn
State)
Computing is currently based on binary (Boolean) logic, but a new
type of computing architecture created by electrical engineers at
Penn State stores information in the frequencies and phases of
periodic signals and could work more like the human brain.
It would use a fraction of the energy necessary for today's
computers, according to the engineers.
To achieve the new architecture, they used a thin film of vanadium
oxide on a titanium dioxide substrate to create an oscillating
switch. Vanadium dioxide is called a "wacky oxide" because it
transitions from a conducting metal to an insulating semiconductor
and vice versa with the addition of a small amount of heat or
electrical current.
Biological synchronization for associative processing
Using a standard electrical engineering trick, Nikhil Shukla,
graduate student in electrical engineering, added a series resistor
to the oxide device to stabilize oscillations. When he added a
second similar oscillating system, he discovered that, over time,
the two devices began to oscillate in unison, or synchronize.
This coupled system could provide the basis for non-Boolean
computing. Shukla worked with Suman Datta, professor of electrical
engineering, and co-advisor Roman Engel-Herbert, assistant professor
of materials science and engineering, Penn State. They reported
their results May 14 in Scientific Reports (open access).
"It's called a small-world network," explained Shukla. "You see it
in lots of biological systems, such as certain species of fireflies.
The males will flash randomly, but then for some unknown reason the
flashes synchronize over time." The brain is also a small-world
network of closely clustered nodes that evolved for more efficient
information processing.
"Biological synchronization is everywhere," added Datta. "We wanted
to use it for a different kind of computing called associative
processing, which is an analog rather than digital way to compute."
An array of oscillators can store patterns -- for instance, the color
of someone's hair, their height and skin texture. If a second area
of oscillators has the same pattern, they will begin to synchronize,
and the degree of match can be read out, without consuming a lot of
energy and requiring a lot of transistors, as in Boolean computing.
A neuromorphic computer chip
Datta is collaborating with Vijay Narayanan, professor of computer
science and engineering, Penn State, in exploring the use of these
coupled oscillations to solve visual recognition problems more
efficiently than existing embedded vision processors.
Shukla and Datta called on the expertise of Cornell University
materials scientist Darrell Schlom to make the vanadium dioxide thin
film, which has extremely high quality similar to single crystal
silicon. Arijit Raychowdhury, computer engineer, and Abhinav Parihar
graduate student, both of Georgia Tech, mathematically simulated the
nonlinear dynamics of coupled phase transitions in the vanadium
dioxide devices.
Parihar created a short video simulation of the transitions, which
occur at a rate close to a million times per second, to show the way
the oscillations synchronize. Venkatraman Gopalan, professor of
materials science and engineering, Penn State, used the Advanced
Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory to visually
characterize the structural changes occurring in the oxide thin film
in the midst of the oscillations.
Datta believes it will take seven to 10 years to scale up from their
current network of two-three coupled oscillators to the 100 million
or so closely packed oscillators required to make a neuromorphic
computer chip.
One of the benefits of the novel device is that it will use only
about one percent of the energy of digital computing, allowing for
new ways to design computers. Much work remains to determine if
vanadium dioxide can be integrated into current silicon wafer
technology.
The Office of Naval Research primarily supported this work. The
National Science Foundation's Expeditions in Computing Award also
supported this work.
Abstract of Scientific Reports paper
Strongly correlated phases exhibit collective carrier dynamics that
if properly harnessed can enable novel functionalities and
applications. In this article, we investigate the phenomenon of
electrical oscillations in a prototypical MIT system, vanadium
dioxide (VO2). We show that the key to such oscillatory behaviour is
the ability to induce and stabilize a non-hysteretic and
spontaneously reversible phase transition using a negative feedback
mechanism. Further, we investigate the synchronization and coupling
dynamics of such VO2 based relaxation oscillators and show, via
experiment and simulation, that this coupled oscillator system
exhibits rich non-linear dynamics including charge oscillations that
are synchronized in both frequency and phase. Our approach of
harnessing a non-hysteretic reversible phase transition region is
applicable to other correlated systems exhibiting metal-insulator
transitions and can be a potential candidate for oscillator based
non-Boolean computing.
references:
Nikhil Shukla et al., Synchronized charge oscillations in correlated
electron systems, Scientific Reports, 2014, DOI: 10.1038/srep04964
(open access)
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