Probabilistic Computing with p-Bits : Between a Bit and a q-Bit

16th September 2020

Timing : 1 pm EST

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For a list of all talks at the NanoBio seminar Series 2020, see here


Digital computing is based on a deterministic bit with two values, 0 and 1. On the other hand, quantum computing is based on a q-bit which is a delicate superposition of 0 and 1. This talk draws attention to something in-between namely, a p-bit which is a robust classical entity fluctuating between 0 and 1. We have demonstrated experimentally that these p-bits can be built with existing technology to operate at room temperature and used as building blocks for constructing autonomous p-circuits. We argue that such p-circuits can function as hardware accelerators for many applications that use stochastic algorithms, while providing a bridge to the emerging field of quantum computing.





Snow
Supriyo Datta
Thomas Duncan Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
School of Electrical Engineering, Purdue University

Supriyo Datta received his B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1975 and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1977 and 1979 working on ultrasonics. In 1981 he joined Purdue University and started work on nanoscale electronic devices. His paper S.Datta, Phys. Rev. B40, 5830 (1989), established the relation between the non-equilibrium Green function (NEGF) method of many-body physics and the Landauer approach of mesoscopic physics. Since then till 2005 his group was focused on developing the NEGF-Landauer method into a practical framework which is now widely used in the modeling of quantum transport in nanoscale electronic devices. For this work he was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE).