Let Analog Be Analog: Principles for Designing Analog Accelerators

Accelerators that take advantage of analog circuits for in-memory processing have become a major research topic in recent years. These systems have the potential to provide performance and efficiency beyond what is achievable from conventional digital systems. However, the fundamental differences between analog and digital computation means that using digital abstractions to design analog architectures often leads to systems that are not robust to uniquely analog sources of error. This paper discusses the pitfalls of popular design choices for analog systems that are based on digital abstractions. To replace these misused abstractions, we suggest a set of guiding principles that better leverage the properties of analog systems to jointly improve system accuracy and energy efficiency.

@article{feinberg2026letanalog,
  author    = {Ben Feinberg and T. Patrick Xiao and Christopher H. Bennett and Sapan Agarwal},
  title     = {{Let Analog Be Analog: Principles for Designing Analog Accelerators}},
  journal   = {IEEE Micro},
  year      = {2026},
  pages     = {1--10},
  doi       = {10.1109/MM.2026.3666132}
}