Open AccessOptical and electrical programmable computing energy use comparison
Author(s) -
Christopher R. Cole
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.420027
Subject(s) - optical computing , computer science , energy (signal processing) , multiplication (music) , unconventional computing , variable (mathematics) , computational science , optics , distributed computing , physics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , acoustics , mathematical analysis
Optical computing has been proposed as a replacement for electrical computing to reduce energy use of math intensive programmable applications like machine learning. Objective energy use comparison requires that data transfer is separated from computing and made constant, with only computing variable. Three operations compared in this manner are multiplication, addition and inner product. For each, it is found that energy use is dominated by data transfer, and that computing energy use is a small fraction of the total. Switching to optical from electrical programmable computing does not reduce energy use.