NSF-ERVA Wave-Based Computing Workshop

Workshop Goal

This workshop will convene experts from academia, industry, and government to discuss Wave-Based Computing (WBC). The goal of the workshop is to identify research challenges and bottlenecks that must be addressed in order to realize the potential of wave-based computing in real-world settings.

THEME OVERVIEW

Wave-based computing seeks to harness the principles of wave dynamics to improve the performance and efficiency of information processing tasks. Wave-based computing holds significant potential, particularly for tasks involving signal and image processing and Artificial Intelligence (AI), which require processing of massive amounts of data, offering the promise of achieving higher throughput and dramatically reducing energy consumption compared with traditional digital electronics. Wave-based computing devices may be able to manipulate continuous analog data, thereby unlocking the innate power of massive parallelism. Utilizing the physical principles of both linear and nonlinear wave phenomena, leveraging advances in materials science and chip-scale integration, and potentially integrating quantum technologies (e.g., entanglement, superposition) offers the possibility of unlocking unprecedented computational power and energy efficiency. Cumulative advances in materials, transducers, and design concepts should enable the move toward miniaturization of these devices, making it increasingly feasible to integrate wave-based computing units within compact, chip-scale systems. This shift could enable a future in which wave-based computing redefines the landscape of information technology, providing innovative alternatives and complements to current computing architectures.

Agenda Highlights

Workshop discussions will encompass the research foci that will be essential to advance the emerging field of wave-based computing:

- Materials

- Devices and transducers

- Circuits and systems engineering

- Applied mathematics

- Algorithms and architectures

Also of interest is to explore the role of quantum phenomena in advancing wave computing science and technology, based on the expectation of significant overlap between wave computing and photonics-based quantum information processing. The workshop will consider a systems-based co-design process based on the premise that this may afford maximal translatability for real-world deployment. While both electromagnetic and acoustic wave-based computing will be considered, spin-wave computing is beyond the planned scope of this event.

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