Volume 1 Issue 4, April 2018

Direct-current-powered microwave amplifiers that approach the quantum noise limit can be created through the control of emission processes in a superconducting circuit.

An approach to computing that is fast, low-power and precise can be created by combining an analogue in-memory processor with a conventional digital processor.

A holography computing board that combines eight field-programmable gate arrays offers a scalable approach to generating holograms with a high frame rate.

This Perspective highlights the existence of gaps between the computational complexity and energy efficiency required for the continued scaling of deep neural networks and the hardware capacity actually available with current CMOS technology scaling, in situations where edge inference is required; it then discusses various architecture and algorithm innovations that could help to bridge these gaps.

DC-powered microwave amplifiers approach the quantum noise limit by using the interaction between microwave radiation and inelastic Cooper-pair tunnelling across a voltage-biased Josephson junction.

A substrate-free solution process can create large-area two-dimensional tellurium crystals, which can be used to build field-effect transistors that exhibit air-stable performance at room temperature for over two months and high on-state current densities of 1 A mm^–1.

Carbon nanotube-based thin-film transistors and integrated circuits, which offer low power consumption and highly uniform performance, can be transferred to arbitrary substrates, including biodegradable polymers, plant leaves, and a person's wrist.

A hybrid system that combines a von Neumann machine with a computational memory unit can offer both the high precision of digital computing and the energy/areal efficiency of in-memory computing, which is illustrated by accurately solving a system of 5,000 equations using 998,752 phase-change memory devices.

A special-purpose holography computing board, which uses eight large-scale field-programmable gate arrays, can be used to generate 10⁸-pixel holograms that can be updated at a video frame rate.

An international collaboration between Philips and the Sony Corporation led to the creation of the compact disc. Kees A. Schouhamer Immink explains how it came about.