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Interest in non-algorithmic, unconventional computing is rising in recent years due to more and more apparent short comings of classic stored-program digital computers, such as energy efficiency, degree of parallelism in computations, clock frequency limitations, integration density, silicon utilization, etc. One notable such unconventional approach are oscillator based Ising machines, i.e., systems consisting of a number of oscillators which can be coupled in order to create an analogue for some problem to be solved, while the actual information is encoded in the phase relationships of these oscillators with respect to some reference (typically one of these oscillators). It has been shown that machines of this type are capable of solving NP-hard problems such as max-cut, etc. In the following an experimental Ising machine is presented together with experimental results obtained from this machine.

Oscillator based Ising machines are non-von-Neumann machines ideally suited for solving combinatorial problems otherwise intractable on classic stored-program digital computers due to their run-time complexity. Possible future applications are manifold ranging from quantum simulations to protein folding and are of high academic and commercial interest as well. Described in the following is a very simple such machine aimed at educational and research applications.

Traditionally, compiler researchers either conduct experiments within an existing production compiler or develop their own prototype compiler; both options come with trade-offs. On one hand, prototyping in a production compiler can be cumbersome, as they are often optimized for program compilation speed at the expense of software simplicity and development speed. On the other hand, the transition from a prototype compiler to production requires significant engineering work. To bridge this gap, we introduce the concept of sidekick compiler frameworks, an approach that uses multiple frameworks that interoperate with each other by leveraging textual interchange formats and declarative descriptions of abstractions. Each such compiler framework is specialized for specific use cases, such as performance or prototyping. Abstractions are by design shared across frameworks, simplifying the transition from prototyping to production. We demonstrate this idea with xDSL, a sidekick for MLIR focused on prototyping and teaching. xDSL interoperates with MLIR through a shared textual IR and the exchange of IRs through an IR Definition Language. The benefits of sidekick compiler frameworks are evaluated by showing on three use cases how xDSL impacts their development: teaching, DSL compilation, and rewrite system prototyping. We also investigate the trade-offs that xDSL offers, and demonstrate how we simplify the transition between frameworks using the IRDL dialect. With sidekick compilation, we envision a future in which engineers minimize the cost of development by choosing a framework built for their immediate needs, and later transitioning to production with minimal overhead., Comment: 14 pages, 15 figures; updated twice to include acknowledgements

Current digital computers are about to hit basic physical boundaries with respect to integration density, clock frequencies, and particularly energy consumption. This requires the application of new computing paradigms, such as quantum and analog computing in the near future. Although neither quantum nor analog computer are general purpose computers they will play an important role as co-processors to offload certain classes of compute intensive tasks from classic digital computers, thereby not only reducing run time but also and foremost power consumption. In this work, we describe a random walk approach to the solution of certain types of partial differential equations which is well suited for combinations of digital and analog computers (hybrid computers). The experiments were performed on an Analog Paradigm Model-1 analog computer attached to a digital computer by means of a hybrid interface. At the end we give some estimates of speedups and power consumption obtainable by using future analog computers on chip., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures. Proceeding for the MikroSystemTechnik Kongress 2023 (VDE Verlag MST Kongress 2023)

Many people think of analog computing as a historic dead-end in computing. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth as analog computing - together with quantum computing - has the potential to bring computing to new levels with respect to raw computational power and energy efficiency. The following paper explains the limits of digital computers, gives a quick introduction to analog computing in general, and shows a number of recent developments that will change the way we think about computers in the next few years.

A variety of experiments investigating properties of neutrons can be performed at pulsed reactor neutron sources like the research reactor TRIGA Mainz. A typical problem faced by these experiments is the non-availability of a reliable facility-provided trigger signal in coincidence with the neutron production. Here we present the design and implementation of a neutron pulse detector that provides a coincident trigger signal for experimental timing with a relative precision of 4.5 ms., Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures

Modern analog computers are ideally suited to solving large systems of ordinary differential equations at high speed with low energy consumtion and limited accuracy. In this article, we survey N-body physics, applied to a simple water model inspired by force fields which are popular in molecular dynamics. We demonstrate a setup which simulate a single water molecule in time. To the best of our knowledge such a simulation has never been done on analog computers before. Important implementation aspects of the model, such as scaling, data range and circuit design, are highlighted. We also analyze the performance and compare the solution with a numerical approach., Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Emerging Topics in Computing, IEEE Trans

This book chapter describes a novel approach to training machine learning systems by means of a hybrid computer setup i.e. a digital computer tightly coupled with an analog computer. As an example a reinforcement learning system is trained to balance an inverted pendulum which is simulated on an analog computer, thus demonstrating a solution to the major challenge of adequately simulating the environment for reinforcement learning., Comment: Book chapter

Analog computers can be revived as a feasible technology platform for low precision, energy efficient and fast computing. We justify this statement by measuring the performance of a modern analog computer and comparing it with that of traditional digital processors. General statements are made about the solution of ordinary and partial differential equations. Computational fluid dynamics are discussed as an example of large scale scientific computing applications. Several models are proposed which demonstrate the benefits of analog and digital-analog hybrid computing., Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, accepted paper towards a Special Issue of the open-access journal "Advances in Radio Science"