Cellular wave computing via nanoscale chip architectures

Abstract

Nanoscale electronic technologies, both CMOS-based and beyond, provide the means to fabricate massively parallel systems with thousands or millions of processors/cores in a small package. Most of these architectures are in prototype stage. Owing to physical constraints the cellular property prevails: they have blocks of mainly identical processing cells in arrays, and the precedence of geometric locality is mandatory. The cells might vary both in function as well as in their modes of operation, including arithmetic/analog, logic and symbolic cells, possibly with integrated sensory elements. The interplay between local dynamics and global dynamics plays an increasingly important role. Cellular wave computers rely on this architecture endowed with a new world of algorithms based on spatial-temporal dynamics as protagonist instructions. Today, crossing the billion-transistor-chip boundary, desktop supercomputers are emerging. A typical product might consist of close to a million logic processors and tens of thousands of DSPs in FPGA arrays. Other architectures with GPUs and array processors are becoming ubiquitous. On the other hand, cellular visual microprocessors and other portable low-power devices move towards wireless and other portable technologies. The maturity of 3D integration provides another mechanism for complexity and efficiency increase. The biological counterparts are starting to cover not only the single modality effects, but multimodal organizations are considered as well. Moreover, they inspire learning algorithms. Not only are new devices emerging, but new algorithmic thinking and related software technologies are also developing hand-in-hand. The issue is not just to ‘parallelize’ existing algorithms, but to invent new spatial-temporal algorithms for tasks that are operating on either topographic or non-topographic data or objects. The recent success of the 12th IEEE CNNA 2010 Workshop in Berkeley (February 2010) has made a boost in the development of this field and many new devices entering the market by protagonist vendors accelerate the need for a new kind of computer science and for new computer engineering tools. Physical implementation, CMOS, and non-CMOS devices Virtual and physical cellular machines and algorithmic principles Algorithmic innovation and software design tools Biological modeling and inspiration Application case studies Theoretical foundation. Deadline for submission of manuscripts is 20 December 2010, via the electronic submission system of the Journal.