Abstract

Our goal is to examine the energetics of computation for analog and digital computers. A careful analysis of digital computers has already been performed (1). That analysis suggests that each computation must have enough energy to overcome thermal noise. That is the energy per digital calculation, ${\text{E}}_{\text{D}}^{\text{'}}$, must satisfy where k is Boltzmann's constant and T is the operating temperature.

© 1989 Optical Society of America