Liquid Light Computing: from logic to analogue simulation
Pavlos G. Lagoudakis · 2022 IEEE Photonics Conference (IPC) · 2022
Modern digital computers have changed our lives in a variety of ways, but the technology on which they are built is rapidly reaching a hard limit due to inherent quantum effects. Two of the main pillars of our modern digital computers are the electronic transistor and the von-Neumann computer architecture. While the von-Neumann architecture established the physical separation of computing tasks like storage and processing, transistors are the fundamental building blocks in digital computers. The drive for faster and more powerful computers can be realised by increasing the number of transistors in a processor and the clock frequency. However, Moore’s law will soon come to an end, whilst the breakdown of Dennard’s scaling law means that clock frequencies have remain unchanged since 2006. This leads to the pressing quest to develop new kinds of transistors and alternative computing architectures that could one day lead to more efficient computers.