{"ID":22918818,"CreatedAt":"2026-09-17T01:02:08.507062015Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-09-20T18:11:56.143995915Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17903","arxiv_id":"2609.17903","title":"Composability rather than computation sets the cost of an analog EML hardware fabric","abstract":"The operator eml(x, y) = exp(x) - ln(y) with the constant 1 generates the elementary functions, a continuous counterpart to NAND. Whether it yields a useful fabric had not been asked of hardware. We ask in network models, circuit simulation and SkyWater 130 nm layout. Four bipolar junctions evaluate the operator for 13 fJ, beating a width-matched digital datapath by 4-134x. The fabric assembled from them is not cheap: it loses to resource-matched baselines, and over the reals its grammar excludes trigonometry. Amplifiers holding those junctions' operating points take 74.5% of a cell's current, so a cell costs 3000 times what they spend. Extracted non-idealities cost 2.6x when a cell must hold a value and nothing when it need only be repeatable. Sharing them across cells recovers two of the three orders. The premise was that a universal primitive licenses a uniform machine. It survives in the primitive and fails in the machine.","short_abstract":"The operator eml(x, y) = exp(x) - ln(y) with the constant 1 generates the elementary functions, a continuous counterpart to NAND. Whether it yields a useful fabric had not been asked of hardware. We ask in network models, circuit simulation and SkyWater 130 nm layout. Four bipolar junctions evaluate the operator for 13...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17903","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.17903v1","authors":"[\"C. Teuscher\"]","published":"2026-09-15T22:46:50Z","proceeding":"cs.ET","tasks":"[\"cs.ET\",\"cs.AR\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}