Smart technologies for effective reconfiguration: the FASTER approach

Current and future computing systems increasingly require that their functionality stays flexible after the system is operational, in order to cope with changing user requirements and improvements in system features, i.e. changing protocols and data-coding standards, evolving demands for support of different user applications, and newly emerging applications in communication, computing and consumer electronics. Therefore, extending the functionality and the lifetime of products requires the addition of new functionality to track and satisfy the customers needs and market and technology trends. Many contemporary products along with the software part incorporate hardware accelerators for reasons of performance and power efficiency. While adaptivity of software is straightforward, adaptation of the hardware to changing requirements constitutes a challenging problem requiring delicate solutions. The FASTER (Facilitating Analysis and Synthesis Technologies for Effective Reconfiguration) project aims at introducing a complete methodology to allow designers to easily implement a system specification on a platform which includes a general purpose processor combined with multiple accelerators running on an FPGA, taking as input a high-level description and fully exploiting, both at design time and at run time, the capabilities of partial dynamic reconfiguration. The goal is that for selected application domains, the FASTER toolchain will be able to reduce the design and verification time of complex reconfigurable systems providing additional novel verification features that are not available in existing tool flows

CMOL: Second Life for Silicon?

This report is a brief review of the recent work on architectures for the prospective hybrid CMOS/nanowire/ nanodevice ("CMOL") circuits including digital memories, reconfigurable Boolean-logic circuits, and mixed-signal neuromorphic networks. The basic idea of CMOL circuits is to combine the advantages of CMOS technology (including its flexibility and high fabrication yield) with the extremely high potential density of molecular-scale two-terminal nanodevices. Relatively large critical dimensions of CMOS components and the "bottom-up" approach to nanodevice fabrication may keep CMOL fabrication costs at affordable level. At the same time, the density of active devices in CMOL circuits may be as high as 1012 cm2 and that they may provide an unparalleled information processing performance, up to 1020 operations per cm2 per second, at manageable power consumption.Comment: Submitted on behalf of TIMA Editions (http://irevues.inist.fr/tima-editions

Polariton Nanophotonics using Phase Change Materials

Polaritons formed by the coupling of light and material excitations such as plasmons, phonons, or excitons enable light-matter interactions at the nanoscale beyond what is currently possible with conventional optics. Recently, significant interest has been attracted by polaritons in van der Waals materials, which could lead to applications in sensing, integrated photonic circuits and detectors. However, novel techniques are required to control the propagation of polaritons at the nanoscale and to implement the first practical devices. Here we report the experimental realization of polariton refractive and meta-optics in the mid-infrared by exploiting the properties of low-loss phonon polaritons in isotopically pure hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), which allow it to interact with the surrounding dielectric environment comprising the low-loss phase change material, Ge$_3$Sb$_2$Te$_6$ (GST). We demonstrate waveguides which confine polaritons in a 1D geometry, and refractive optical elements such as lenses and prisms for phonon polaritons in hBN, which we characterize using scanning near field optical microscopy. Furthermore, we demonstrate metalenses, which allow for polariton wavefront engineering and sub-wavelength focusing. Our method, due to its sub-diffraction and planar nature, will enable the realization of programmable miniaturized integrated optoelectronic devices, and will lay the foundation for on-demand biosensors.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, typos corrected in v

On-Chip Microwave Quantum Hall Circulator

Circulators are non-reciprocal circuit elements integral to technologies including radar systems, microwave communication transceivers, and the readout of quantum information devices. Their non-reciprocity arises from the interference of microwaves over the centimetre-scale of the signal wavelength in the presence of bulky magnetic media that break time-reversal symmetry. Here we realize a completely passive on-chip microwave circulator with size one-thousandth the wavelength by exploiting the chiral, slow-light response of a 2-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in the quantum Hall regime. For an integrated GaAs device with 330 um diameter and 1 GHz centre frequency, a non-reciprocity of 25 dB is observed over a 50 MHz bandwidth. Furthermore, the direction of circulation can be selected dynamically by varying the magnetic field, an aspect that may enable reconfigurable passive routing of microwave signals on-chip

A Compact CMOS Memristor Emulator Circuit and its Applications

Conceptual memristors have recently gathered wider interest due to their diverse application in non-von Neumann computing, machine learning, neuromorphic computing, and chaotic circuits. We introduce a compact CMOS circuit that emulates idealized memristor characteristics and can bridge the gap between concepts to chip-scale realization by transcending device challenges. The CMOS memristor circuit embodies a two-terminal variable resistor whose resistance is controlled by the voltage applied across its terminals. The memristor 'state' is held in a capacitor that controls the resistor value. This work presents the design and simulation of the memristor emulation circuit, and applies it to a memcomputing application of maze solving using analog parallelism. Furthermore, the memristor emulator circuit can be designed and fabricated using standard commercial CMOS technologies and opens doors to interesting applications in neuromorphic and machine learning circuits.Comment: Submitted to International Symposium of Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) 201