2025/05/07 by Tao Zhu, Zhu, Tao, Bowen Zhu +29
Computer Science · Engineering · #Advanced Photonic Communication Systems #Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Neural Networks and Reservoir Computing #Optics (physics.optics) #Photonic and Optical Devices
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2505.04197
openalex publication_date 2025/05/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In the "post-Moore era", the growing challenges in traditional computing have driven renewed interest in analog computing, leading to various proposals for the development of general-purpose analog computing (GPAC) systems. In this work, we present a GPAC prototype featuring a silicon photonic chip designed for fully optical analog computation. This system leverages on-chip multi-channel architectures to enable parallel processing and utilizes wavelength-division multiplexing to significantly enhance computational capacity. In addition, we have developed an error-correction algorithm to monitor processing operations in real time, ensuring the reliability of computational results. Experimentally, we demonstrate the system's capability to solve ordinary differential equations and its applications in communications, microwave photonics, and image processing. The chip's energy efficiency is evaluated to reach up to 227 tera-operations per second per watt. Through this research, we provide a novel hardware framework and innovative directions for analog photonic computing.