Bio-inspired collective analog computation

Abstract

In this thesis, I present electronic circuit systems that mimic collective analog com- putation found in biology. By combining the advantages of analog and digital computation, these systems can lead to highly complex, rapid, and energy-efficient systems such as an analog supercomputer that is capable of simulating a great number of bio- chemical reactions in cells. To this end, I first implement a neuron-inspired collective analog adder in a standard 0.5 [mu]m CMOS process. It serves as a prototype system that visualizes fundamental design ideas and techniques for building a collective analog computation system. Next, I build a cell-inspired analog circuit system which efficiently models bacterial genetic circuits in a cell, which can provide a powerful modeling and simulation tool for the design and analysis of circuits in synthetic and systems biology.