CCCCatalyzing the computing research community and enabling the pursuit of innovative, high-impact research.
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Rss
  • About
    • About CCC
    • Council Members
    • Council Meetings
    • CCC Council Nominations
    • Governing Documents
    • FAQ
    • Contact
  • Visioning
    • Visioning Activities
      • 2022
      • 2021
      • 2020
      • 2019
      • 2018
      • 2017
      • 2016
      • 2015
      • 2014
      • 2013
      • 2012
      • 2011 and Prior Years
    • Workshop Reports
    • RFP – Creating Visions for Computing Research
    • Blue Sky
    • CS for Social Good White Paper Competition
    • Robotics Roadmap
  • Leadership Development
    • Call for Council Nominations
    • Leadership in Science Policy Institute
    • Big Data Regional Hubs
    • Postdoc Best Practices
      • Postdoc Best Practice Final Reports
      • Postdoc Best Practice Resources
    • CIFellows
      • CIFellows 2021
      • CIFellows 2020
      • CIFellows 2020: For the Record
      • CI Fellows 2014 Workshop
      • 2011 Class
      • 2010 Class
      • 2009 Class
      • Assessment
      • Diversity
      • Success Stories
  • Task Forces
    • Computing Challenges to Humanity: Climate
    • Research Ecosystem Working Group
    • NextGen AI
    • Unique Ways to Compute
    • Socio Technical Resilience
    • Computational Challenges in Healthcare
    • Past Task Forces
      • AI Working Group
      • Weird Ways to Compute
      • Security, Integrity, and Trust
      • Future of Life in a Hybrid World
      • Computing Challenges to Humanity
  • Resources
    • CCC Call for Content
    • Workshop Reports
    • CCC-Led White Papers
    • Presentations
    • CCC Responds to the Community
    • Recent CCC Activities
    • Ongoing CCC Activities
    • CIFellows Spotlight
    • Great Innovative Ideas
    • Event Videos
    • Catalyzing Computing Podcast
    • Computing Research in Action
    • Computing Research Highlights
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Special Events
    • Past Events
    • CCC at AAAS
      • CCC at AAAS 2023
      • CCC at AAAS 2022
      • CCC at AAAS 2020
      • CCC at AAAS 2019
      • CCC at AAAS 2018
      • CCC at AAAS 2017
      • CCC at AAAS 2016
      • CCC at AAAS 2013
  • CCC by CS Area
    • AI /ML / Robotics
    • Architecture / Systems / Networking
    • Databases / Informatics / Data Science / HPC
    • Human-Computer Interaction / Graphics / Visualization
    • IoT / Ubiquitous
    • Programming Languages / Compilers / Software Engineering
    • Security / Privacy / Fairness
    • Theory / Algorithms
    • Miscellaneous
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Menu

Physics & Engineering Issues in Adiabatic/Reversible Classical Computing


October 5-9, 2020

Virtual Event
Zoom Meeting



Event Contact

Ann Drobnis
adrobnis@cra.org
2022530381


Event Type

2020 Events, 2020 Visioning Activities, Workshop


Event Category

CCC


Tags

computer architecture, computer hardware, reversible computing

Videos
Overview

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) held a virtual workshop the week of Oct. 5-9 (with a virtual reception on Friday, Oct. 2) to address the physics & engineering challenges in adiabatic/ reversible classical computing. This workshop gathered the research community in this field to lay a common foundation of existing state-of-the-art knowledge and work together to prepare a comprehensive workshop report that can make the case for a major new initiative effectively to federal-level decision-makers.

Learn more about the motivation for the workshop below and watch recorded plenary talks from the workshop here. 

It has become widely recognized that today’s approach to general digital computation, which is based on standard combinational and sequential digital architectures constructed out of standard (irreversible) Boolean logic elements implemented using CMOS (complementary metal/oxide/semiconductor) transistor technology, is approaching fundamental physical limits to further improvements on its energy efficiency and power-limited performance. The final (2015) edition of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), as well as recent editions of its successor roadmap, the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS), suggest that a practical limit will be reached by around the year 2030. By the end of the CMOS roadmap, logic signal energies at the gate of a minimum-sized transistor simply cannot decrease much further without running afoul of fundamental limits on efficiency and stability arising from thermal fluctuations. Even moving to “Beyond CMOS” switching devices cannot improve this situation very much, since the same fundamental thermodynamic limits still apply.

Thus, there is an increasing need to explore new fundamental paradigms for the engineering implementation of general computing systems (at all scales from tiny embedded devices to large-scale supercomputers and data centers) in search of novel concepts for computation that can transcend the above limits that are inherent to the traditional irreversible digital paradigm. The space of ideas that have been considered include a variety of concepts for “physical” computing (computing that leverages fundamental physics to do computing in a more direct way than in the traditional digital paradigm), including various analog and stochastic computing concepts, as well as quantum computing (for problems amenable to quantum speedups).

In January 2019, a CCC workshop on “Thermodynamic Computing” (TDC) was held specifically to explore the space of new computing paradigms inspired by the application of the principles of thermodynamics (and in particular, the modern non-equilibrium/stochastic approaches to thermodynamics). During the breakout sessions of the TDC workshop, Michael Frank (one of the organizers of this Reversible Computing workshop) proposed a related new “priority research direction” on “Physics and Engineering of Reversible Computing Hardware”[1]. As discussed in the resulting TDC workshop report, reversible computing can be considered to be the historically first conceptualization of thermodynamic computing, having first been considered in as early as 1961 by Rolf Landauer [2].

However, despite the broad applicability of reversible computing, and its rather conservative nature relative to the wider playing field of alternative computing schemes, the mainstream computing industry still views reversible computing as constituting an extremely radical departure from the way things are done today. There are a substantial number of important questions about basic physical science issues pertaining to reversible computing that still need to be explored. These are in the nature of quite fundamental research problems that, if they were investigated in more depth and solved effectively, could result in revolutionary improvements in the basic practical characteristics (speed, power, size, cost) of the primitive functional elements of a reversible machine, as well as the higher-level circuits and systems built out of these. 

Thus, we view the basic science and engineering of reversible computers as being currently an extremely ripe area of focus for future large-scale federal research initiatives, for the following reasons:

  1. The reversible computing field is absolutely necessary for there to be any hope of advancing ordinary general digital computing beyond the energy-efficiency limits that apply to the conventional computing paradigm, which will definitely be reached in the foreseeable future;
  2. There is a range of important foundational physical science research in the reversible computing field that could have potential revolutionary impact, that still needs to be done;
  3. This field has so far been too forwards-looking for industry to invest in directly, although at least one major industrial research lab is presently considering starting up a project to investigate the limits of computing, including reversible computing.
  4. There has not yet been any major U.S. Federal research initiative that has focused on this field. We only know of two, relatively small Federal programs that are active in this field currently:
    1. The “Adiabatic/Reversible Logic Test Chip” STTR program sponsored by AFRL [3]; so far only two university performers (Notre Dame and University of Kentucky) have been sponsored under this program;
    2. The Army Research Office’s Advanced Computing Initiative (ACI) [4] mentioned reversible computing as an area of interest, and we know that there has been at least one award for reversible computing issued under that program (to Sandia).

This workshop gathered the research community in this field to lay a common foundation of existing state-of-the-art knowledge, and work together to prepare a comprehensive workshop report that can make the case for a major new initiative effectively to federal level decision-makers. Workshop attendance was by invitation only.

[1] M. P. Frank, “Priority Research Direction: Physics & Engineering of Reversible Computing Hardware,” January 2019. [Online]. Available: https://cfwebprod.sandia.gov/cfdocs/CompResearch/docs/Frank_Reversible_Computing_2v1.pdf. [Accessed 20 September 2019].

[2] R. Landauer, “Irreversibility and Heat Generation in the Computing Process,” IBM Journal of Research and Development, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 183-191, 1961.

[3] A. C. Pineda, “Adiabatic/Reversible Logic Test Chip,” 20 April 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/1482545. [Accessed 20 September 2019].

[4] J. M. Coyle, “Broad Agency Announcement for Department of Defense Advanced Computing Initiative (ACI),” February 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.arl.army.mil/www/pages/8/ARO%20NSA%20BAA%20-%20final%20to%20post%20secure%20v2.pdf. [Accessed 20 September 2019].

Agenda

October 2, 2020 (Friday)

Welcome Reception

3:00 PM PDT – 5 PM PDT

October 5, 2020 (Monday)

Workshop Introduction

8:30 AM – 9:20 AM PDT

Intro. to Physics Session

9:20 AM – 10:00 AM PDT

  • Michael P. Frank (Sandia National Labs)
Plenary Session 1

10:00 AM – 10:20 AM PDT

  • Norm Margolus (MIT)
BREAK

10:20 AM – 10:50 AM PDT

Plenary Session 2

10:50 AM – 11:50 AM PDT

  • Neal Anderson (U Mass Amherst)
  • Subhash Pidaparthi (U. of Notre Dame)
  • Karpur Shukla (Brown University)
Panel/Q&A

11:50 AM – 12:10 PM PDT

BREAK

12:10 PM – 12:40 PM PDT

Physics Breakout

12:40 PM – 2:40 PM PDT

Slides:

  • Sebastian Deffner slides
  • Karpur Shukla slides
  • Norm Margolus slides
  • Markus Müller slides
End Day 1

2:40 PM PDT

October 6, 2020 (Tuesday)

Keynote

8:50 AM – 9:20 AM PDT

  • Ed Fredkin (Carnegie Mellon University)
Plenary Session 3

9:20 AM – 10:20 AM PDT

  • Michael P. Frank (Sandia National Labs)
  • Sarah Frost-Murphy (Gem State Informatics)
  • Jie Ren (SIMIT, Shanghai)
BREAK

10:20 AM – 10:50 AM PDT

Plenary Session 4

10:50 AM – 11:50 AM PDT

  • Kevin Osborn (University of Maryland)
  • Ralph Merkle (Institute for Molecular Manufacturing)
  • Joseph Friedman (University of Texas at Dallas) – slides
Panel/Q&A

11:50 AM – 12:10 PM PDT

BREAK

12:10 PM – 12:40 PM PDT

Technology Breakout

12:40 PM – 2:40 PM PDT

  • Joseph Friedman slides
  • Alexander Khitun slides
End Day 2

2:40 PM PDT

October 7, 2020 (Wednesday)

Plenary Session 5

8:30 AM – 10:20 AM PDT

  • Michael P. Frank (Sandia National Labs)
  • Gregory Snider (Notre Dame University)
  • Noboyuki Yoshikawa (Yokohama National U., Japan)
  • Himanshu Thapliyal (University of Kentucky)
  • Robert Wille (Johannes Kepler U., Linz)
BREAK

10:20 AM – 10:50 AM PDT

Plenary Session 6

10:50 AM – 11:50 AM PDT

  • Jayson Lynch (MIT)
  • Robert Glück (University of Copenhagen)
  • Erik DeBenedictis (Zettaflops, LLC)
Panel/Q&A

11:50 AM – 12:10 PM PDT

BREAK

12:10 PM – 12:40 PM PDT

Architecture & High-Level (Tools / Algorithms / Systems / Apps.) Breakouts

12:40 PM – 3:10 PM PDT

Architecture Breakout

  • Nobuyuki Yoshikawa slides
  • Andrew Pineda slides
End Day 3

3:10 PM PDT

October 8, 2020 (Thursday)

Day 4 Intro

9:00 AM – 9:20 AM PDT

Outbriefs from Breakouts

9:20 AM – 10:20 AM PDT

BREAK

10:20 AM – 10:50 AM PDT

Concordance Discussion #1

10:50 AM – 12:10 PM PDT

BREAK

12:10 PM – 12:40 PM PDT

Second-Round Breakouts

12:40 PM – 3:10 PM PDT

End Day 4

3:10 PM PDT

October 9, 2020 (Friday)

Day 5 Intro

9:00 AM – 9:20 AM PDT

Outbrief from Breakouts

9:20 AM – 10:20 AM PDT

BREAK

10:20 AM – 10:50 AM PDT

Concordance Discussion #2

10:50 AM – 12:10 AM PDT

BREAK

12:10 PM – 12:40 PM PDT

Final Breakout

12:40 PM – 1:40 PM PDT

BREAK

1:40 PM – 2:10 PM

Final Concordance

2:10 PM – 4:10 PM PDT

End Day 5

4:10 PM PDT

Organizers
Workshop Organizers and Program Committee:
Michael (Mike) Frank, Sandia National Labs
Frank
Tom Conte, Georgia Tech
Conte
Erik DeBenedictis, Zettaflops, LLC
DeBenedictis
Jayson Lynch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lynch
Karpur Shukla, Brown University
Shukla
Robert Wille, Johannes Kepler University Linz
Wille
With Support From CCC System and Architecture Task Force Members:
Sujata Banerjee, VMware
Banerjee
Mark Hill, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Hill
Logistics

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic this workshop will take place virtually. Workshop participants will be invited to join the workshop based on their submission of relevant position paper (see more in the Application tab). While virtual, we expect participants to fully participate in all days of the workshop.

Application

For this workshop we request position papers of no more than two pages in length. Please consider addressing questions like:

  • What is the sub-problem or problems that you think most needs to be tackled and why?
  • Are there reasons the problem has become more important?
  • What insights lead you to hypothesize that better solutions are possible now?
  • What research program or plan do you foresee as needed to achieve success

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Physics-based models of reversible computing.
  • Physical limits of reversible computing (including fundamental limits).
  • Device technologies for reversible computing.
  • Circuit design techniques for reversible computing.
  • Design tools / hardware description languages for reversible machines.
  • Processing architectures for reversible computing (including hybrid approaches).
  • Programming models for (partly/fully) reversible architectures.
  • Systems engineering for reversible computing systems (including scaling analyses, design tradeoffs).
  • Asymptotically efficient reversible algorithms for important problems.
  • Applications of (energy efficient) reversible computing.

Topics out of scope include:

  • Work that deals entirely at the level of abstract operation sequences (e.g. ccNOT operations), without attention being paid to how these map to practical hardware architectures/engineering implementations.
  • Any topics in quantum computing that do not also have relevance to classical reversible computing.
  • Unconventional computing paradigms that are unrelated to reversible computing.
  • Applications of logically reversible computing (e.g., for transaction rollback) that do not require approaching a physically reversible implementation.
  • Any abstract theory topics not having any clear/direct relevance to practical applications, engineering, or systems.

If you are interested in participating in the workshop, please submit your position paper here no later than 11:59 PM PT on August 21st. We will notify selected participants by August 31st.

Authors of position papers may be asked to record video presentations about their paper to be made available during/after the workshop. While virtual, we expect participants to fully participate in all days of the workshop. A specific agenda with times is forthcoming.

CRA - Uniting Industry, Academia and Government to Advance Computing Research and Change the World.
CCC - Catalyzing the computing research community and enabling the pursuit of innovative, high-impact research.
Increasing the Success and Participation of Underrepresented Groups in Computing Research.
CRA-E - Addressing society’s need for a continuous supply of talented and well-educated computing researchers.
CERP - Promoting diversity in computing through evaluation and research.
Increasing interaction between industry partners and other organizations involved in computing research for the benefit of all.
CRA Home | Contact Us | Unsubscribe/Removal of Information | Terms of Use         © Copyright 2021 - CRA
CCC / Code 8.7 Workshop on Applying AI in the Fight Against Modern Slavery Protected: test
Scroll to top