Artificial Intelligence Accelerators Based on Graphene Optoelectronic Devices

Optical and optoelectronic approaches of performing matrix-vector multiplication (MVM) operations have shown the great promise of accelerating machine learning (ML) algorithms with unprecedented performance. The incorporation of nanomaterials into the system can further improve the device and system performance thanks to their extraordinary properties, but the nonuniformity and variation of nanostructures in the macroscopic scale pose severe limitations for large-scale hardware deployment. Here, a new optoelectronic architecture is presented, consisting of spatial light modulators and tunable responsivity photodetector arrays made from graphene to perform MVM. The ultrahigh carrier mobility of graphene, high-power-efficiency electro-optic control, and extreme parallelism suggest ultrahigh data throughput and ultralow energy consumption. Moreover, a methodology of performing accurate calculations with imperfect components is developed, laying the foundation for scalable systems. Finally, a few representative ML algorithms are demonstrated, including singular value decomposition, support vector machine, and deep neural networks, to show the versatility and generality of the platform.