Abstract
In the 1940s, the first generation of modern computers used vacuum tube oscillators as their principle components, however, with the development of the transistor, such oscillator based computers quickly became obsolete. As the demand for faster and lower power computers continues, transistors are themselves approaching their theoretical limit and emerging technologies must eventually supersede them. With the development of optical oscillators and Josephson junction technology, we are again presented with the possibility of using oscillators as the basic components of computers, and it is possible that the next generation of computers will be composed almost entirely of oscillatory devices. Here, we demonstrate how coupled threshold oscillators may be used to perform binary logic in a manner entirely consistent with modern computer architectures. We describe a variety of computational circuitry and demonstrate working oscillator models of both computation and memory.
Highlights
In 2005, the US National Security Agency [1] concluded that transistors were rapidly approaching the limits of functionality and that new technologies needed to be developed in order to overcome this.Recent advances in novel computation suggest a variety of new computing technologies which may be applicable and have far reaching applications
We have demonstrated how coupled threshold oscillators may be used as the principle components of the generation of computers
The Fitzhugh-Nagumo simulations of the half adder, twooscillator full adder, three-oscillator full adder, and 262 bit multiplier demonstrate threshold oscillators performing all the necessary components of arithmetic logic, while the SR flip-flop demonstrates the potential for very low power memory, when ballistic propagation is considered
Summary
In 2005, the US National Security Agency [1] concluded that transistors were rapidly approaching the limits of functionality and that new technologies needed to be developed in order to overcome this.Recent advances in novel computation suggest a variety of new computing technologies which may be applicable and have far reaching applications. One technology which is considerably more advanced from an implementation perspective is superconductive computing [24,25], based on Rapid Single Flux Quantum (RSFQ) technology [26]– [30] which effectively uses Josephson Junctions (JJs) to replace transistors as the fundamental active element in any circuit. This technology is more mature than the others mentioned above and has already produced practical digital and mixed-signal circuits with world record breaking processing speeds at exceptionally low power [31]–[36]. A new energy-efficient generation of RSFQ circuits has been introduced [47] complemented with energy-efficient cryogenic memory [48] leading to the implementation of energy-efficient computing
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