Circuits, computers, and beyond Boolean logic

Abstract

AbstractHistorically, the invention of the stored programmable computer architecture, introduced by John Von Neumann, was also influenced by electrical circuit implementation aspects, as well as tied to fundamental insight of logic reasoning. It can also be considered as a mind‐inspired machine. Since then, the implementation of logic gates, control and memories has developed independently of the architecture. The Cellular Wave Computer architecture (IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II 1993; 40:163–173; Electron. Lett. 2007; 43:427–449; J. Circuits Syst. Comput. 2003; 5(2):539–562) as a spatial–temporal universal machine on flows has also been influenced by circuit aspects of very large‐scale integration (VLSI) technology, as well as some motivating living neural circuits, via the cellular nonlinear (neural) network (CNN). It might be considered as a brain‐inspired machine.In this paper, after summarizing the main properties of the Cellular Wave Computer, we highlight a few basic properties of this new kind of computer and computing. In particular, phenomena related to (i) the one‐pass solution of a set of implicit equations due to real‐time spatial array feedback, (ii) the true random signal array generation via the insertion of the continuous physical noise signals, (iii) the finite synchrony radius due to the functional delay of wires, as well as to (iv) biology relevance. We also show that the Cellular Wave Computer is performing spatial–temporal inference that goes beyond Boolean logic, a characteristic of living neural circuits. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.