A programmable chemical computer with memory and pattern recognition

Juan Manuel Parrilla-Gutierrez; Abhishek Sharma; Soichiro Tsuda; Geoffrey J. T. Cooper; Gerardo Aragon-Camarasa; Kevin Donkers; Leroy Cronin

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-15190-3

A programmable chemical computer with memory and pattern recognition

Juan Manuel Parrilla-Gutierrez, Abhishek Sharma, Soichiro Tsuda, Geoffrey J. T. Cooper, Gerardo Aragon-Camarasa, Kevin Donkers, Leroy Cronin^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Mechanical Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)

13 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Current computers are limited by the von Neumann bottleneck, which constrains the throughput between the processing unit and the memory. Chemical processes have the potential to scale beyond current computing architectures as the processing unit and memory reside in the same space, performing computations through chemical reactions, yet their lack of programmability limits them. Herein, we present a programmable chemical processor comprising of a 5 by 5 array of cells filled with a switchable oscillating chemical (Belousov–Zhabotinsky) reaction. Each cell can be individually addressed in the ‘on’ or ‘off’ state, yielding more than 2.9 × 1017 chemical states which arise from the ability to detect distinct amplitudes of oscillations via image processing. By programming the array of interconnected BZ reactions we demonstrate chemically encoded and addressable memory, and we create a chemical Autoencoder for pattern recognition able to perform the equivalent of one million operations per second.

Original language	English
Article number	1442
Number of pages	8
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	11
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15190-3
Publication status	Published - 18 Mar 2020

Keywords

computers
chemical processes
computer architecture

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10.1038/s41467-020-15190-3

Parrilla-Gutierrez, J. M. et al (2020) A programmable chemical computer with memory and pattern recognition
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Cite this

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AU - Tsuda, Soichiro

AU - Cooper, Geoffrey J. T.

AU - Aragon-Camarasa, Gerardo

AU - Donkers, Kevin

AU - Cronin, Leroy

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AB - Current computers are limited by the von Neumann bottleneck, which constrains the throughput between the processing unit and the memory. Chemical processes have the potential to scale beyond current computing architectures as the processing unit and memory reside in the same space, performing computations through chemical reactions, yet their lack of programmability limits them. Herein, we present a programmable chemical processor comprising of a 5 by 5 array of cells filled with a switchable oscillating chemical (Belousov–Zhabotinsky) reaction. Each cell can be individually addressed in the ‘on’ or ‘off’ state, yielding more than 2.9 × 1017 chemical states which arise from the ability to detect distinct amplitudes of oscillations via image processing. By programming the array of interconnected BZ reactions we demonstrate chemically encoded and addressable memory, and we create a chemical Autoencoder for pattern recognition able to perform the equivalent of one million operations per second.

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A programmable chemical computer with memory and pattern recognition

Abstract

Keywords

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