Michael Frank's bibliography of publications

Formal publications:

Michael P. Frank, "Reversibility for Efficient Computing", Ph.D. Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to be published June 1999. http://www.ai.mit.edu/~mpf/rc/thesis/phdthesis.html.

Michael P. Frank and Tom Knight, ``Ultimate Theoretical Models of Nanocomputers,'' Nanotechnology 9(3):162-176, Sep. 1998. Also presented at the Fifth Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology, Palo Alto, CA, Nov. 1997. http://www.ai.mit.edu/~mpf/Nano97/paper.html.

Michael P. Frank, Tom Knight, Norm Margolus, ``Reversibility in optimal scalable computer architectures,'' in Calude, Casti, Dineen, eds., Unconventional Models of Computation (proceedings of the First International Conference on Unconventional Models of Computation, Jan. 1998), pages 165-182, Springer, 1998. http://www.ai.mit.edu/~mpf/rc/scaling_paper/scaling.html.

Michael P. Frank, Carlin Vieri, M. Josephine Ammer, Nicole Love, Norman H. Margolus, Thomas F. Knight, Jr., ``A scalable reversible computer in silicon,'' in ibid., pages 183-200. http://www.ai.mit.edu/~mpf/rc/flattop/ft.html.

Michael P. Frank. Advances in decision-theoretic AI: Limited rationality and abstract search. Master's thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 1994. Available on the World-Wide Web at URL http://www.ai.mit.edu/~mpf/papers/Frank-94/Frank-94.html.

Sharon Oviatt, Philip Cohen, Martin Fong, and Michael Frank, ``A Rapid Semi-Automatic Simulation Technique for Investigating Interactive Speech and Handwriting,'' Proceedings of the International Conference on Spoken Language Processing, Bariff, Canada, October 1992.

Matthew L. Ginsberg, Michael Frank, Michael P. Halpin, and Mark C. Torrance, ``Search lessons learned from crossword puzzles,'' Proceedings Eighth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1990.

Other research reports, not formally published, but available through this page:

Translation of Lecerf '63 article.

In 1963, Yves Lecerf created the first formal description of a simulation of arbitrary Turing machines on reversible ones. Unfortunately, he wrote it in French. (What a maroon!) With the help of the Altavista Translation Service, I have translated this paper into English.

Optimal Voltages for CMOS Circuits

This memo derives the optimal power-supply voltage for heat-limited high-performance ordinary irreversible CMOS circuits. The work is not finished, but already we can see that aggressively-pipelined, dense, locally-connected circuits with high activity factors require supply voltages that are several times lower than is standardly suggested, in order to achieve the maximum performance/price that is possible.

The R Programming Language and Compiler

This document describes the current state of the reversible high-level language I am working on, and the compiler that translates programs from that language into our reversible machine instruction set.

Modifications to PISA architecture to support guaranteed reversibility and other features

Describes modifications to Carlin Vieri's reversible instruction set to provide additional features. This is similar to the version of the ISA was assumed by my compiler.

Separations of reversible and irreversible space-time complexity classes

If abstract reversible and irreversible computers can both access a black-box input, the irreversible models prove to be fundamentally more powerful. This may imply that some of the most ambitious proposed computer architectures cannot be efficiently implemented within our micro-reversible universe. Instead, the corresponding reversible designs may ultimately yield the most powerful computers that are physically possible.

Physically-Motivated Models of Computation for Complexity Theory

This memo proposes models of computation that are conjectured to represent the true capabilities of physics, and thus constitute an appropriate basis for the study of algorithms and computational complexity in a way that is not based on an artificial model of computation that may be asymptotically more or less powerful than real computers can possibly be.

Voltage Scaling and Limits to Energy Efficiency for CMOS-based SCRL.

This is a working memo (not yet finished) that analyzes how the energy/operation of the SCRL adiabatic circuit technique scales with speed, threshold, and temperature, and how it compares to standard CMOS.

Flattop: The First Fully Adiabatic Computer

We recently designed and fabricated a fully-adiabatic chip implementing the Billiard Ball Model Cellular Automaton, a simple reversible system capable of universal computation.

Programming Reversible Computers.

My Ph.D. thesis proposal, submitted and approved.

Low-Energy Computing for Implantable Medical Devices.

I delivered this talk to an audience of our colleagues in MEDG on 2/21/96.

Quantum Computing studies.

This page conveys the results of my studies on this topic for my area exam in Feb. '96. Quantum computing is a topic that is closely related to reversible computing.

Bibliography on Reversible Computing.

A shared resource in our project.

Memo on reversible control flow instructions.

 This is an old working memo I wrote which outlines an early version of the reversible control flow instructions used in our instruction set architecture. It is flawed and badly needs revision, so please don't quote it or redistribute it.

Unpublished reports from Masters' thesis research in LCS:

M. Frank, ``Rational abstract search,'' draft report, June 1993. Abstract.

M. Frank, ``Rational partial state-graph search.'' Term paper for Jon Doyle, May 1993. Abstract.

M. Frank, ``Rational Partial Evaluation of Decision Trees.'' Master's thesis proposal, approved March 1993.

Mark C. Torrance, M. Frank, and Carl R. Witty, ``An Abalone Position For Which the Game is Undefined,'' draft report, February 1992. Abstract.

Unpublished reports from undergraduate work at Stanford:

M. Frank, ``Winograd and Realism.'' Term paper, July 1991. Abstract.

M. Frank and Terry Winograd, ``Dialogue on Realism, Part II.'' Transcript of personal discussion, March 1991.

M. Frank and Fred Dretske. ``Dialogue on Realism, Part I.'' Transcript of personal discussion, March 1991.

M. Frank. ``Exploration in Machine Learning.'' Term paper for Steve Minton, December 1990.

M. Frank. ``Strategies for Intelligent Agent Exploration of Complex Environments.'' Term paper for Michael Genesereth, March 1990. For hardcopy email mpf@ai.mit.edu.

M. Frank. ``A PDP Network for Learning UNIX Programs.'' Term paper for David E. Rumelhart, March 1990.