Physarum-Inspired Electronic and Nanoelectronic Computing Systems

Electronic and nanoelectronic systems implementing a Physarum-inspired computing architecture are presented. The system is designed to solve computationally demanding problems. The core of the electronic system consists of a capacitor network with star topology. Charging and discharging of the capacitors under charge conservation mimics the spatiotemporal dynamics of an amoeboid organism, exhibiting the sophisticated ability of exploring a solution space. Small fluctuations inherently involved in electronic devices are used to explore solution space. We constructed electronic Physarum and successfully demonstrated solution search capability through finding solutions of optimization problems including constraint satisfaction problem and satisfiability problem. Nanoelectronics implementation of the electron Physarum using electron Brownian ratchet devices is proposed toward the ultra-small system operating ultra-low power consumption. A unique feature of the system is that the system acquires spontaneous solution search capability from unavoidable fluctuation in nanostructure and nanodevices. Recent research results of fabrication and characterization of electron Brownian ratchet device using semiconductor nanowire are described.