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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/M40288/01
Title: ANALOGUE VSLI COMPUTING WITH UNCERTAINTY-AN INTEGRATED HELMHOLTZ MACHINE FOR INTEGRATED SENSOR FUSION
Principal Investigator: Murray, Professor AF
Other Investigators:
Reekie, Dr HM
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Applied Materials Scottish Development International
Department: Sch of Engineering
Organisation: University of Edinburgh
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 01 May 1999 Ends: 31 January 2003 Value (£): 235,213
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Biological & Medicinal Chem. Design & Testing Technology
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Communications Electronics
Creative Industries Information Technologies
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
The project aims to investigate probabilistic computing or computing with uncertainty in mixed-mode (analogue-digital) VLSI, using the Helmholtz Machine(HM) as a vehicle and a sensor-fusion task as the demonstrator. Probabilistic circuits will be developed, based upon our own earlier pulse-stream, mixed-mode VLSI. The work will use 0.7um CMOS and be based around the HM for sensor processing, aiming to demonstrate a new approach to an industrially-important task. The project's overarching aim is, however, to build an understanding of circuits that utilise uncertainty and noise such as will be found in deep sub micron structures, as opposed to striving to minimise it. The project therefore anticipates some of the issues that will arise as device dimension shrink, and aims to develop new approaches that perform useful computation with imprecise elements. This will bring together an unusual computational paradigm and novel circuit design techniques. The project therefore falls between the remit of EPSRC's Systems Architectures and Electronics areas. The centre of gravity is in Electronics as analogue VLSI is involved, but it lies closely aligned with many current strategic objectives within Systems Architectures.
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Organisation Website: http://www.ed.ac.uk