arXiv subjects

Albert Lee

Publications and source records attributed to Albert Lee.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

An Ultra-Low Power and Fast Ising Machine using Voltage-Controlled Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory

Physics-inspired computing paradigms, such as Ising machines, are emerging as promising hardware alternatives to traditional von Neumann architectures for tackling computationally intensive combinatorial optimization problems (COPs). While quantum, optical, and electronic devices have garnered significant attention for their potential in realizing Ising machines, their translation into practical systems for industry-relevant applications remains challenging, with each approach facing specific limitations in power consumption and speed. To address this challenge, we report the first chip-level spintronic Ising machine using voltage-controlled magnetoresistive random access memory. The core of our design leverages magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) driven by the voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy effect to realize the probabilistic update of Ising spins through a new mechanism. It enables a latency below 1 ns and an energy consumption under 40 fJ per spin update, achieving a 1000-times improvement over previous current-driven MTJ-based implementations. We map two real-world COPs in electronic design automation-global routing and layer assignment-onto the Ising model and demonstrate high-quality results with an energy efficiency of 25000 solutions per second per watt. This outperforms state-of-the-art quantum and graphics processing units by six and seven orders of magnitude, respectively. These results establish voltage-controlled spintronics as a compelling route towards next-generation physics-inspired machine intelligence, offering a paradigm for ultra-low-power, high-speed, and scalable computation.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2024

Addressing Discrete Dynamic Optimization via a Logic-Based Discrete-Steepest Descent Algorithm

Dynamic optimization problems involving discrete decisions have several applications, yet lead to challenging optimization problems that must be addressed efficiently. Combining discrete variables with potentially nonlinear constraints stemming from dynamics within an optimization model results in mathematical programs for which off-the-shelf techniques might be insufficient. This work uses a novel approach, the Logic-based Discrete-Steepest Descent Algorithm (LD-SDA), to solve Discrete Dynamic Optimization problems. The problems are formulated using Boolean variables that enforce differential systems of constraints and encode logic constraints that the optimization problem needs to satisfy. By posing the problem as a generalized disjunctive program with dynamic equations within the disjunctions, the LD-SDA takes advantage of the problem's inherent structure to efficiently explore the combinatorial space of the Boolean variables and selectively include relevant differential equations to mitigate the computational complexity inherent in dynamic optimization scenarios. We rigorously evaluate the LD-SDA with benchmark problems from the literature that include dynamic transitioning modes and find it to outperform traditional methods, i.e., mixed-integer nonlinear and generalized disjunctive programming solvers, in terms of efficiency and capability to handle dynamic scenarios. This work presents a systematic method and provides an open-source software implementation to address these discrete dynamic optimization problems by harnessing the information within its logical-differential structure.

math.OC↗

arXiv2024

Voltage-Controlled Magnetoelectric Devices for Neuromorphic Diffusion Process

Stochastic diffusion processes are pervasive in nature, from the seemingly erratic Brownian motion to the complex interactions of synaptically-coupled spiking neurons. Recently, drawing inspiration from Langevin dynamics, neuromorphic diffusion models were proposed and have become one of the major breakthroughs in the field of generative artificial intelligence. Unlike discriminative models that have been well developed to tackle classification or regression tasks, diffusion models as well as other generative models such as ChatGPT aim at creating content based upon contexts learned. However, the more complex algorithms of these models result in high computational costs using today's technologies, creating a bottleneck in their efficiency, and impeding further development. Here, we develop a spintronic voltage-controlled magnetoelectric memory hardware for the neuromorphic diffusion process. The in-memory computing capability of our spintronic devices goes beyond current Von Neumann architecture, where memory and computing units are separated. Together with the non-volatility of magnetic memory, we can achieve high-speed and low-cost computing, which is desirable for the increasing scale of generative models in the current era. We experimentally demonstrate that the hardware-based true random diffusion process can be implemented for image generation and achieve comparable image quality to software-based training as measured by the Frechet inception distance (FID) score, achieving ~10^3 better energy-per-bit-per-area over traditional hardware.

cs.NE↗

arXiv2024

Logic-Based Discrete-Steepest Descent: A Solution Method for Process Synthesis Generalized Disjunctive Programs

The optimization of chemical processes is challenging due to the nonlinearities arising from process physics and discrete design decisions. In particular, optimal synthesis and design of chemical processes can be posed as a Generalized Disjunctive Programming (GDP) superstructure problem. Various solution methods are available to address these problems, such as reformulating them as Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) problems; nevertheless, algorithms explicitly designed to solve the GDP problem and potentially leverage its structure remain scarce. This paper presents the Logic-based Discrete-Steepest Descent Algorithm (LD-SDA) as a solution method for GDP problems involving ordered Boolean variables. The LD-SDA reformulates these ordered Boolean variables into integer decisions called external variables. The LD-SDA solves the reformulated GDP problem using a two-level decomposition approach where the upper-level subproblem determines external variable configurations. Subsequently, the remaining continuous and discrete variables are solved as a subproblem only involving those constraints relevant to the given external variable arrangement, effectively taking advantage of the structure of the GDP problem. The advantages of LD-SDA are illustrated through a batch processing case study, a reactor superstructure, a distillation column, and a catalytic distillation column, and its open-source implementation is available online. The results show convergence efficiency and solution quality improvements compared to conventional GDP and MINLP solvers.

math.OC↗

arXiv2024

Analyzing the Variations in Emergency Department Boarding and Testing the Transferability of Forecasting Models across COVID-19 Pandemic Waves in Hong Kong: Hybrid CNN-LSTM approach to quantifying building-level socioecological risk

Emergency department's (ED) boarding (defined as ED waiting time greater than four hours) has been linked to poor patient outcomes and health system performance. Yet, effective forecasting models is rare before COVID-19, lacking during the peri-COVID era. Here, a hybrid convolutional neural network (CNN)-Long short-term memory (LSTM) model was applied to public-domain data sourced from Hong Kong's Hospital Authority, Department of Health, and Housing Authority. In addition, we sought to identify the phase of the COVID-19 pandemic that most significantly perturbed our complex adaptive healthcare system, thereby revealing a stable pattern of interconnectedness among its components, using deep transfer learning methodology. Our result shows that 1) the greatest proportion of days with ED boarding was found between waves four and five; 2) the best-performing model for forecasting ED boarding was observed between waves four and five, which was based on features representing time-invariant residential buildings' built environment and sociodemographic profiles and the historical time series of ED boarding and case counts, compared to during the waves when best-performing forecasting is based on time-series features alone; and 3) when the model built from the period between waves four and five was applied to data from other waves via deep transfer learning, the transferred model enhanced the performance of indigenous models.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2023

A Read Margin Enhancement Circuit with Dynamic Bias Optimization for MRAM

This brief introduces a read bias circuit to improve readout yield of magnetic random access memories (MRAMs). A dynamic bias optimization (DBO) circuit is proposed to enable the real-time tracking of the optimal read voltage across processvoltage-temperature (PVT) variations within an MRAM array. It optimizes read performance by adjusting the read bias voltage dynamically for maximum sensing margin. Simulation results on a 28-nm 1Mb MRAM macro show that the tracking accuracy of the proposed DBO circuit remains above 90% even when the optimal sensing voltage varies up to 50%. Such dynamic tracking strategy further results in up to two orders of magnitude reduction in the bit error rate with respect to different variations, highlighting its effectiveness in enhancing MRAM performance and reliability.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2023

Interfacial Resonance States-Induced Negative Tunneling Magneto-resistance in Orthogonally-Magnetized CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB

Magnetic tunneling junctions (MTJs) are essential for non-volatile magneto-resistive random access memory (MRAM) applications. Here, we report the observation of a large negative tunneling magneto-resistance (TMR) in the CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB system with an orthogonally-magnetized configuration. Through the thickness modulation of the MgO barrier, the negative TMR component can be enhanced up to 20% under a negative voltage bias. Moreover, the tunnel anisotropic magneto-resistance measurements unveil that the negative TMR component likely arises from the interfacial resonance states (IRS) in the minority band of the bottom ferromagnetic layer. Complementary first principle calculations further quantify the IRS location and strength with respect to the Fermi level position. Our work not only confirm the vital role of IRS in the electrical transport of MTJ, but also provide valuable insights for the design of new-generation voltage-controlled MRAM and related spintronic applications.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2022

The First 3$\pi$ 3D Map of ISM Dust Temperature

We present the first large-scale 3D map of interstellar dust temperature. We build upon existing 3D reddening maps derived from starlight absorption (Bayestar19), covering 3/4 of the sky. Starting with the column density for each of 500 million 3D voxels, we propose a temperature and emissivity power-law slope ($\beta$) for each of them, and integrate along the line of sight to synthesize an emission map in five frequency bands observed by \emph{Planck} and \emph{IRAS}. The reconstructed emission map is constrained to match observations on a $10'$ scale, and does so with good fidelity. We produce 3D temperature maps at resolutions of $110', 55', $and $27'$. We assess performance on Cepheus, a dust cloud with two distinct components along the line of sight, and find distinct temperatures for the two components. We thus show that this methodology has enough precision to constrain clouds with different temperature along the line of sight up to $1-\sigma$ error. This would be an important result for dust frequency decorrelation foreground analysis for cosmic microwave background experiments, which would be impacted by a line-of-sight with varying temperature and magnetic field components. In addition to $T$ and $\beta$, we constrain the conversion factor between emission optical depth and reddening. This conversion factor is assumed to be constant in commonly used emission-based reddening maps. However, this work shows a factor of two variation that may prove significant for some applications.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2022

Cryogenic in-memory computing using magnetic topological insulators

Machine learning algorithms have been proven effective for essential quantum computation tasks such as quantum error correction and quantum control. Efficient hardware implementation of these algorithms at cryogenic temperatures is essential. Here, we utilize magnetic topological insulators as memristors (termed magnetic topological memristors) and introduce a cryogenic in-memory computing scheme based on the coexistence of the chiral edge state and the topological surface state. The memristive switching and reading of the giant anomalous Hall effect exhibit high energy efficiency, high stability, and low stochasticity. We achieve high accuracy in a proof-of-concept classification task using four magnetic topological memristors. Furthermore, our algorithm-level and circuit-level simulations of large-scale neural networks demonstrate software-level accuracy and lower energy consumption for image recognition and quantum state preparation compared with existing magnetic memristor and CMOS technologies. Our results not only showcase a new application of chiral edge states but also may inspire further topological quantum physics-based novel computing schemes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Integrated Artificial Neural Network with Trainable Activation Function Enabled by Topological Insulator-based Spin-Orbit Torque Devices

Non-volatile memristors offer a salient platform for artificial neural network (ANN), but the integration of different function blocks into one hardware system remains challenging. Here we demonstrate the implementation of brain-like synaptic (SOT-S) and neuronal (SOT-N) functions in the Bi2Te3/CrTe2 heterostructure-based spin-orbit torque (SOT) device. The SOT-S unit exhibits highly linear (linearity error < 4.19%) and symmetrical long-term potentiation/depression process, resulting in better performance compared to other memristor synapses. Meanwhile, the Sigmoid-shape transition curve inherited in the SOT-N cell replaces the software-based activation function block, hence reducing the system complexity. On this basis, we employ a serial-connected, voltage-mode sensing ANN architecture to enhance the vector-matrix multiplication signal strength with low reading error of 0.61%. Furthermore, the trainable activation function of SOT-N enables the integrated SOT-ANN to execute the Batch Normalization algorithm and activation operation within one clock cycle, which bring about improved on/off-chip training performance close to the ideal baseline.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

A Multi-domain Magneto Tunnel Junction for Racetrack Nanowire Strips

Domain-wall memory (DWM) has SRAM class access performance, low energy, high endurance, high density, and CMOS compatibility. Recently, shift reliability and processing-using-memory (PuM) proposals developed a need to count the number of parallel or anti-parallel domains in a portion of the DWM nanowire. In this paper we propose a multi-domain magneto-tunnel junction (MTJ) that can detect different resistance levels as a function of a the number of parallel or anti-parallel domains. Using detailed micromagnetic simulation with LLG, we demonstrate the multi-domain MTJ, study the benefit of its macro-size on resilience to process variation and present a macro-model for scaling the size of the multi-domain MTJ. Our results indicate scalability to seven-domains while maintaining a 16.3mV sense margin.

cs.ET↗

arXiv2021

Max and Coincidence Neurons in Neural Networks

Network design has been a central topic in machine learning. Large amounts of effort have been devoted towards creating efficient architectures through manual exploration as well as automated neural architecture search. However, todays architectures have yet to consider the diversity of neurons and the existence of neurons with specific processing functions. In this work, we optimize networks containing models of the max and coincidence neurons using neural architecture search, and analyze the structure, operations, and neurons of optimized networks to develop a signal-processing ResNet. The developed network achieves an average of 2% improvement in accuracy and a 25% improvement in network size across a variety of datasets, demonstrating the importance of neuronal functions in creating compact, efficient networks.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2021

Force-Sensing Tensegrity for Investigating Physical Human-Robot Interaction in Compliant Robotic Systems

Advancements in the domain of physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) have tremendously improved the ability of humans and robots to communicate, collaborate, and coexist. In particular, compliant robotic systems offer many characteristics that can be leveraged towards enabling physical interactions that more efficiently and intuitively communicate intent, making compliant systems potentially useful in more physically demanding subsets of human-robot collaborative scenarios. Tensegrity robots are an example of compliant systems that are well-suited to physical interactions while still retaining useful rigid properties that make them practical for a variety of applications. In this paper, we present the design and preliminary testing of a 6-bar spherical tensegrity with force-sensing capabilities. Using this prototype, we demonstrate the ability of its force-sensor array to detect a variety of physical interaction types that might arise in a human context. We then train and test a series of classifiers using data from unique and representative interactions in order to demonstrate the feasibility of using this physical modality of sensing to reliably communicate goals and intents from a human operator in a human-robot collaborative setting.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2021

A Thermodynamic Core using Voltage-Controlled Spin-Orbit-Torque Magnetic Tunnel Junctions

We present a magnetic implementation of a thermodynamic computing fabric. Magnetic devices within computing cores harness thermodynamics through its voltage-controlled thermal stability; while the evolution of network states is guided by the spin-orbit-torque effect. We theoretically derive the dynamics of the cores and show that the computing fabric can successfully compute ground states of a Boltzmann Machine. Subsequently, we demonstrate the physical realization of these devices based on a CoFeB-MgO magnetic tunnel junction structure. The results of this work pave the path towards the realization of highly efficient, high-performance thermodynamic computing hardware. Finally, this paper will also give a perspective of computing beyond thermodynamic computing.

cs.ET↗

arXiv2018

A Color-locus Method for Mapping $R_V$ Using Ensembles of Stars

We present a simple but effective technique for measuring angular variation in $R_V$ across the sky. We divide stars from the Pan-STARRS1 catalog into Healpix pixels and determine the posterior distribution of reddening and $R_V$ for each pixel using two independent Monte Carlo methods. We find the two methods to be self-consistent in the limits where they are expected to perform similarly. We also find some agreement with high-precision photometric studies of $R_V$ in Perseus and Ophiuchus, as well as with a map of reddening near the Galactic plane based on stellar spectra from APOGEE. While current studies of $R_V$ are mostly limited to isolated clouds, we have developed a systematic method for comparing $R_V$ values for the majority of observable dust. This is a proof of concept for a more rigorous Galactic reddening map.x

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2018

Conditional Activation for Diverse Neurons in Heterogeneous Networks

In this paper, we propose a new scheme for modelling the diverse behavior of neurons. We introduce the conditional activation, in which a neurons activation function is dynamically modified by a control signal. We apply this method to recreate behavior of special neurons existing in the human auditory and visual system. A heterogeneous multilayered perceptron (MLP) incorporating the developed models demonstrates simultaneous improvement in learning speed and performance across a various number of hidden units and layers, compared to a homogeneous network composed of the conventional neuron model. For similar performance, the proposed model lowers the memory for storing network parameters significantly.

cs.NE↗

arXiv2017

A neuronal dynamics study on a neuromorphic chip

Neuronal firing activities have attracted a lot of attention since a large population of spatiotemporal patterns in the brain is the basis for adaptive behavior and can also reveal the signs for various neurological disorders including Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, epilepsy and others. Here, we study the dynamics of a simple neuronal network using different sets of settings on a neuromorphic chip. We observed three different types of collective neuronal firing activities, which agree with the clinical data taken from the brain. We constructed a brain phase diagram and showed that within the weak noise region, the brain is operating in an expected noise-induced phase (N-phase) rather than at a so-called self-organized critical boundary. The significance of this study is twofold: first, the deviation of neuronal activities from the normal brain could be symptomatic of diseases of the central nervous system, thus paving the way for new diagnostics and treatments; second, the normal brain states in the N-phase are optimal for computation and information processing. The latter may provide a way to establish powerful new computing paradigm using collective behavior of networks of spiking neurons.

q-bio.NC↗