Coupled oscillators for computing: A review and perspective

Abstract

Coupled oscillators are highly complex dynamical systems, and it is an intriguing concept to use this oscillator dynamics for computation. The idea is not new, but is currently the subject to intense research as part of the quest for “beyond Moore” electronic devices. To a large extent, these efforts are motivated by biological observations: neural systems and mammalian brains, which seem to operate on oscillatory signals. In this paper, we give a survey of oscillator-based computing, with the goal of understanding its promise and limitation for next-generation computing. Our focus will be on the physics of (mostly nanoscale) oscillatory systems and on their characteristics that may enable effective computing.

Noise Immunity of Oscillatory Computing Devices

“…A schematics of the network is shown in Fig. 1a Alternatively, the phases of an oscillator may serve as state variables, as described in 1,17,18 . Figure 1c shows one possible implementation.…”

“…Oscillator-based-computing (OBC) is a form of analog computing, where the phase and frequency of a periodic signal is used to carry and process information, and oscillator-oscillator interactions perform some form of collective computing 1 . OBC networks are now being explored for extremely challenging problems, such as NP-hard problems [2][3][4][5][6] or complex, super-efficient neural networks 7,8 .…”

Integration and Co-design of Memristive Devices and Algorithms for Artificial Intelligence

“…Besides the SNNs as a signal morphological approach, another approach for brain-like computation is the collective-state computation that emulates brain-like computation at a high level ( Csaba and Porod 2020 ). This computational model originated from the Hopfield neural network ( Hopfield 1984 ), then extended to cellular neural networks ( Chua and Yang 1988 ), coupled oscillators ( Ignatov et al., 2017 ), and adiabatic annealing machines with probabilistic bits ( Borders et al., 2019 ) ( Figure 1 F).…”

Experimental Demonstration of a Reconfigurable Coupled Oscillator Platform to Solve the Max-Cut Problem

“…Examples of such demonstrations include the D-Wave quantum annealer [13]- [15], optical parametric oscillator-based Coherent Ising machines (CIM) [16]- [18], and SRAM-based Ising machines that use CMOS annealing [19], as well as the new CMOS annealing processors that use processing-in-/near-memory [20]- [22]. Coupled oscillators have also been explored as an alternate non-Boolean approach to solving computationally hard problems [23]- [35], and more importantly, have recently been shown to behave as Ising machines [36]- [39] relevant to solving the Max-Cut problem. Wang et al [36], [37] and Chou et al [38] recently demonstrated Ising machines using resistively coupled sinusoidal oscillators operating under the influence of a second harmonic injection signal, and Dutta et al [39] showed a similar functionality in four capacitively coupled injection-locked VO2 oscillators.…”