In
an effort to set up a community around approximate
computing, we are asking participants in Rebooting Computing that are
knowledgeable about this topic to post references to explanatory
material.
Approximate computing is an approach to low-energy computing. There are general approaches toward lowering the energy consumption of a computer that would have the side effect of reducing the reliability of the computation and results. This effect is mitigated in approximate computing through algorithms that tolerate uncertainty where it is unimportant to the answer and bolster uncertain information through codes and other algorithmic methods.
We
request that people posting technical materials make themselves
available to explain the material or to participate in a dialog.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Neuromorphic processing
In
an effort to set up a community around adiabatic and reversible
computing, we are asking participants in Rebooting Computing that are
knowledgeable about this topic to post references to explanatory
material.
The scope of this thread can include both analog and digital brain-inspired or neuromorphic approaches.
Living brains use chemical and electrical analog behavior in synapses and soma (nerve cell bodies) to compute in the ways needed for survival.The analog scope of this thread is artificial systems with a human-engineered device or circuit taking the place of a synapse neuron. These systems are sometimes called "neuromorphic."
However, Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) can be implemented digitally using fixed or floating point values in lieu of analog signals. The digital scope of this thread would be devices and architectures that would execute the neural algorithms with speed and energy efficiency much higher than possible with a von Neumann computer.
We request that people posting technical materials make themselves available to explain the material or to participate in a dialog.
The scope of this thread can include both analog and digital brain-inspired or neuromorphic approaches.
Living brains use chemical and electrical analog behavior in synapses and soma (nerve cell bodies) to compute in the ways needed for survival.The analog scope of this thread is artificial systems with a human-engineered device or circuit taking the place of a synapse neuron. These systems are sometimes called "neuromorphic."
However, Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) can be implemented digitally using fixed or floating point values in lieu of analog signals. The digital scope of this thread would be devices and architectures that would execute the neural algorithms with speed and energy efficiency much higher than possible with a von Neumann computer.
We request that people posting technical materials make themselves available to explain the material or to participate in a dialog.
Extending CMOS technology direction
In
an effort to set up a community around extending CMOS, we are asking participants in Rebooting Computing that are
knowledgeable about this topic to post references to explanatory
material.
We are defining this topic area to include topics at or beyond the current frontier of technology. There appears to be a consensus that CMOS and Moore's Law will continue only for a finite period of time, with this blog thread focused on what comes beyond that time. To be true to the phrase "rebooting computing," the systems envisioned by this thread should include a new active device that has circuit behavior distinctly different from a transistor, a new circuit distinctly different from CMOS, or a new device that serves a special role in a non-von Neumann architecture.
We request that people posting technical materials make themselves available to explain the material or to participate in a dialog.
We are defining this topic area to include topics at or beyond the current frontier of technology. There appears to be a consensus that CMOS and Moore's Law will continue only for a finite period of time, with this blog thread focused on what comes beyond that time. To be true to the phrase "rebooting computing," the systems envisioned by this thread should include a new active device that has circuit behavior distinctly different from a transistor, a new circuit distinctly different from CMOS, or a new device that serves a special role in a non-von Neumann architecture.
We request that people posting technical materials make themselves available to explain the material or to participate in a dialog.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
update of low-power image recognition competition
Committee Members:
These are the current members in the committee. If you want to join (or you want to recommend someone), please send email to me (yunglu@purdue.edu). Thank you.
We are inclined to remove the idea of using a display for giving the test data. This will introduce too much uncertainty in data acquisition through cameras. Instead, we plan to give the data to participants through networks directly.
The competition will be held in mid 2015. The rules will be announced in summer 2014.
These are the current members in the committee. If you want to join (or you want to recommend someone), please send email to me (yunglu@purdue.edu). Thank you.
- Alex Berg (UNC)
- David Kirk (Nvidia)
- Yung-Hsiang Lu (Purdue)
- Gi-Joon Nam (IBM, representative of ACM SIGDA)
We are inclined to remove the idea of using a display for giving the test data. This will introduce too much uncertainty in data acquisition through cameras. Instead, we plan to give the data to participants through networks directly.
The competition will be held in mid 2015. The rules will be announced in summer 2014.
Adiabatic and reversible computing
In an effort to set up a community around adiabatic and reversible computing, we are asking participants in Rebooting Computing that are knowledgeable about this topic to post references to explanatory material.
We request that people posting technical materials make themselves available to explain the material or to participate in a dialog.
We request that people posting technical materials make themselves available to explain the material or to participate in a dialog.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
RCS 2 organizational comments
The following points were discussed by the organizing committee.
Rebooting Computing participants are asked to find future technology options in an expansive way. There is a lot of precedent for identifying technology options that are subjectively or quantitatively better than current technology. However, Rebooting Computing encourages participants to look further. First, the current technology (CMOS, or Moore's Law) will continue to advance for some time. Technology options should be compared against the endpoint of road maps rather than current products. Furthermore, there are multiple radical technologies under consideration. It will be important to see how the forward-looking technologies stack up against each other.
RCS 2 is viewing applications as the driver for technology requirements. The committee is proposing three applications classes:
- Mobile computing
- Learning and reasoning, based on the "executive assistant" from RCS 1
- Servers and supercomputers
- Neuromorphic, or brain inspired
- Incremental improvements on CMOS
- Adiabatic and Reversible
- Approximate computing
(*NLP = Natural Language Processing; *CNT = Carbon Nanotube; *JJ = Josephson Junction)
The organizing committee discussed the following timeline:
Pre-RCS 2: The blog and website will be seeded with information about Rebooting Computing. Also, some participants will be encouraged to create summary information of technology areas. These will provide context for the program at the RCS 2 event.
At RCS 2: Participants will be encouraged to form groups around self-consistent technology ideas. For example, people advocating a hardware technology in conjunction with people interested in a specific aspect of the applications.
Over summer 2014: Participants will be encouraged to maintain a persistent involvement through the website, blog, e-mail, and personal interactions.
At RCS 3, around October 2014: The goal of this event will be to enable participants to offer "rebooted computing" ideas in forum of people that can appreciate the ideas, including contrasting multiple approaches to computing.
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