Superconducting nanowire-based programmable processor
AssigneeMassachusetts Institute of Technology
InventorsKarl K. Berggren, Oguzhan Murat Onen, Brenden Butters, Emily Toomey
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Abstract
Apparatus and methods relating to programmable superconducting cells are described. A programmable superconducting cell can be formed from a superconducting current loop having at least two terminals connected to the loop. The current loop and terminals can be formed from a single layer of superconducting material. The programmable superconducting cell can be incorporated into a crossbar architecture to form a high-speed vector-matrix multiplying processor for deep neural network computations.
Claims32
A programmable superconducting cell comprising:
- a current loop formed from a superconducting material;
- and
- a nanowire constriction formed in the current loop.
An array of programmable superconducting cells, each programmable superconducting cell comprising:
- a current loop formed from a superconducting material;
- and
- a nanowire constriction formed in the current loop.
A method of programming a memory state of a programmable superconducting cell, the method comprising applying at least one pulse of energy to the superconducting cell that causes a nanowire constriction in a superconducting loop to transition from a superconducting state to a normal resistive state.
A method of multiplying or dividing with a programmable superconducting cell, the method comprising:
- applying a current ramp to a biasing terminal that is coupled to a superconducting current loop of the programmable superconducting cell;
- and
- integrating an amount of current output from an output terminal coupled to the superconducting current loop.
A method of performing deep neural network calculations with an array of programmable superconducting cells, the method comprising:
- performing a forward-pass multiplication of a vector times a matrix wherein vector inputs are provided as current ramps applied to biasing arms that are connected in rows to superconducting current loops in the programmable superconducting cells and matrix values are stored as circulating currents in the superconducting current loops;
- and
- integrating output currents from output terminals connected in columns to the superconducting current loops.
A method of making a programmable superconducting cell, the method comprising:
- forming a current loop from a superconducting material on a substrate;
- and
- forming a nanowire constriction in the current loop.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.