Patent ID: 11875272
Assignee: REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  B  H | IPC B  G  H

Claim 12:
13. Compute engine circuitry configured to represent a spin network mapping of a graph representing a combinatorial optimization problem, the compute engine circuitry comprising:
a plurality of ring oscillator cells, each comprising:
a ring oscillator having an oscillator output;
three coupling blocks, each coupling block connecting the ring oscillator of the cell to the ring oscillator of one of a plurality of neighboring cells to form a coupled ring oscillator; and
a read block configured to generate a state output for each coupled ring oscillator that includes the ring oscillator of the cell, the state output indicating whether the coupled ring oscillator is in one of a same-phase state, in which the connected ring oscillators oscillate in phase with each other, and an opposite-phase state, in which the connected ring oscillators oscillate in an opposite phase from each other; and

a controller configured to output an estimate of a total energy of the mapping based on the state outputs,
wherein the ring oscillator of each cell is connected to the ring oscillators of six of the neighboring cells through the coupling blocks of the cells.