Thermodynamics of computing with circuits
Open Access
- 1 June 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by IOP Publishing in New Journal of Physics
- Vol. 22 (6), 063047
- https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ab82b8
Abstract
Digital computers implement computations using circuits, as do many naturally occurring systems (e.g., gene regulatory networks). The topology of any such circuit restricts which variables may be physically coupled during the operation of the circuit. We investigate how such restrictions on the physical coupling affects the thermodynamic costs of running the circuit. To do this we first calculate the minimal additional entropy production that arises when we run a given gate in a circuit. We then build on this calculation, to analyze how the thermodynamic costs of implementing a computation with a full circuit, comprising multiple connected gates, depends on the topology of that circuit. This analysis provides a rich new set of optimization problems that must be addressed by any designer of a circuit, if they wish to minimize thermodynamic costs.Funding Information
- FQXi (FQXi-RFP-1622)
- FQXi (FQXi-RFP-IPW-1912)
- National Science Foundation (CHE-1648973)
This publication has 55 references indexed in Scilit:
- Statistical Mechanics of Modularity and Horizontal Gene TransferAnnual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, 2013
- The evolutionary origins of modularityProceedings Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 2013
- Work and information processing in a solvable model of Maxwell’s demonProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012
- Relations between entropies produced in nondeterministic thermodynamic processesPhysical Review E, 2009
- Generalizing Landauer’s principlePhysical Review E, 2009
- Information and entropyPhysical Review E, 1993
- Use of mutual information to decrease entropy: Implications for the second law of thermodynamicsPhysical Review A, 1989
- The thermodynamics of computation—a reviewInternational Journal of Theoretical Physics, 1982
- Conservative logicInternational Journal of Theoretical Physics, 1982
- On stability of steady statesThe European Physical Journal A, 1971