A Deep Dive into the Computational Fidelity of High Variability Low Energy Barrier Magnet Technology for Accelerating Optimization and Bayesian Problems

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the potential of low energy barrier magnet (LBM) technology to serve as an accelerator for optimization and probabilistic algorithms, despite device variability, by analyzing its computational fidelity and error margins.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of LBM technology's fidelity and error margins, demonstrating its viability for accelerating error-tolerant algorithms.

Findings

LBM devices show finite deviations but within certifiable error margins

The technology is suitable for error-tolerant algorithms

LBM can be a promising accelerator for emerging computing paradigms

Abstract

Low energy barrier magnet (LBM) technology has recently been proposed as a candidate for accelerating algorithms based on energy minimization and probabilistic graphs because their physical characteristics have a one-to-one mapping onto the primitives of these algorithms. Many of these algorithms have a much higher tolerance for error compared to high-accuracy numerical computation. LBM, however, is a nascent technology, and devices show high sample-to-sample variability. In this work, we take a deep dive into the overall fidelity afforded by this technology in providing computational primitives for these algorithms. We show that while the compute results show finite deviations from zero variability devices, the margin of error is almost always certifiable to a certain percentage. This suggests that LBM technology could be a viable candidate as an accelerator for popular emerging paradigms of computing.