Preprint arXiv: 220911058 Submitted on 22 Sep 2022

Circuit design for quantum machine learning remains a formidable challenge. Inspired by the applications of tensor networks across different fields and their novel presence in the classical machine learning context, one proposed method to design variational circuits is to base the circuit architecture on tensor networks. Here, we comprehensively describe tensor-network quantum circuits and how to implement them in simulations. This includes leveraging circuit cutting, a technique used to evaluate circuits with more qubits than those available on current quantum devices. We then illustrate the computational requirements and possible applications by simulating various tensor-network quantum circuits with PennyLane, an open-source python library for differential programming of quantum computers. Finally, we demonstrate how to apply these circuits to increasingly complex image processing tasks, completing this overview of a flexible method to design circuits that can be applied to industrially-relevant machine learning tasks

A practical overview of image classification with variational tensor-network quantum circuits

Circuit design for quantum machine learning remains a formidable challenge. Inspired by the applications of tensor networks across different fields and their novel presence in the classical machine learning context, one proposed method to design variational circuits is to base the circuit architecture on tensor networks. Here, we comprehensively describe tensor-network quantum circuits and how to implement them in simulations. This includes leveraging circuit cutting, a technique used to evaluate circuits with more qubits than those available on current quantum devices. We then illustrate the computational requirements and possible applications by simulating various tensor-network quantum circuits with PennyLane, an open-source python library for differential programming of quantum computers. Finally, we demonstrate how to apply these circuits to increasingly complex image processing tasks, completing this overview of a flexible method to design circuits that can be applied to industrially-relevant machine learning tasks

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

autoAx: An Automatic Design Space Exploration and Circuit Building Methodology utilizing Libraries of Approximate Components

Approximate computing is an emerging paradigm for developing highly energy-efficient computing systems such as various accelerators. In the literature, many libraries of elementary approximate circuits have already been proposed to simplify the design process of approximate accelerators. Because these libraries contain from tens to thousands of approximate implementations for a single arithmetic operation it is intractable to find an optimal combination of approximate circuits in the library even for an application consisting of a few operations. An open problem is "how to effectively combine circuits from these libraries to construct complex approximate accelerators". This paper proposes a novel methodology for searching, selecting and combining the most suitable approximate circuits from a set of available libraries to generate an approximate accelerator for a given application. To enable fast design space generation and exploration, the methodology utilizes machine learning techniques to create computational models estimating the overall quality of processing and hardware cost without performing full synthesis at the accelerator level. Using the methodology, we construct hundreds of approximate accelerators (for a Sobel edge detector) showing different but relevant tradeoffs between the quality of processing and hardware cost and identify a corresponding Pareto-frontier. Furthermore, when searching for approximate implementations of a generic Gaussian filter consisting of 17 arithmetic operations, the proposed approach allows us to identify approximately $10^3$ highly important implementations from $10^{23}$ possible solutions in a few hours, while the exhaustive search would take four months on a high-end processor.Comment: Accepted for publication at the Design Automation Conference 2019 (DAC'19), Las Vegas, Nevada, US

GCN-RL Circuit Designer: Transferable Transistor Sizing with Graph Neural Networks and Reinforcement Learning

Automatic transistor sizing is a challenging problem in circuit design due to the large design space, complex performance trade-offs, and fast technological advancements. Although there has been plenty of work on transistor sizing targeting on one circuit, limited research has been done on transferring the knowledge from one circuit to another to reduce the re-design overhead. In this paper, we present GCN-RL Circuit Designer, leveraging reinforcement learning (RL) to transfer the knowledge between different technology nodes and topologies. Moreover, inspired by the simple fact that circuit is a graph, we learn on the circuit topology representation with graph convolutional neural networks (GCN). The GCN-RL agent extracts features of the topology graph whose vertices are transistors, edges are wires. Our learning-based optimization consistently achieves the highest Figures of Merit (FoM) on four different circuits compared with conventional black-box optimization methods (Bayesian Optimization, Evolutionary Algorithms), random search, and human expert designs. Experiments on transfer learning between five technology nodes and two circuit topologies demonstrate that RL with transfer learning can achieve much higher FoMs than methods without knowledge transfer. Our transferable optimization method makes transistor sizing and design porting more effective and efficient.Comment: Accepted to the 57th Design Automation Conference (DAC 2020); 6 pages, 8 figure

Electro-Pneumatic Wiring Software for Distance-Learning Students in Automation Control Laboratories

When teaching electro-pneumatic circuits in the automation control class for a distance-learning program, one of the main issues is how to provide hands-on experience for students. In most cases, they can only use simulation design software and watch videos solving laboratory problems without access to the actual equipment. In this paper, the authors developed an electrical wiring software and assembly platform which can help students enhance their hands-on experience when taking the course online. Results show that the performance between on-campus students and distance-learning (DL) students are very similar.Cockrell School of Engineerin

Integration of a wireless sensor network project for introductory circuits and systems teaching

This paper presents an integration of a wireless sensor network design project in an introductory course about circuits and systems. In the project, students will design a wireless sensor network that constitutes of sensors, for a creative surveillance application. Through a versatile project vehicle, project-oriented learning modules, a comprehensive assessment strategy and public learning communities, students can learn contemporary concepts of circuits and systems from the system perspective, as well as develop ability to design a basic electronic system. © 2013 IEEE.published_or_final_versio