Introduction to Reversible Computing

Reversible computing is a model of computation where every step of the process is time-reversible. Unlike conventional computing, one can always perfectly reconstruct the input of a computation from its output, theoretically enabling near-zero energy consumption. No information is ever permanently lost or erased during the process. The design of efficient reversible circuits relies on the use of reversible gates, such as the Multiple Control Toffoli (MCT) gate. This gate is crucial because of its universality, allowing for the construction of any complex reversible circuit. Consequently, the automated design and synthesis of reversible circuits from high-level specifications, like truth tables or other functional representations, has emerged as a vital research area, aiming to efficiently generate optimized, low-cost reversible gate sequences for a wide range of applications.

In the context of communication, encoders are absolutely critical components, serving as the first step in reliably transmitting information across a channel. The first part of this talk provides the fundamental concepts of reversible computing, exploring its theoretical underpinnings and the compelling motivations for its development. Following this foundational overview, various state-of-the-art synthesis and optimization techniques will be briefly discussed. These techniques are used to automatically design and minimize reversible circuits by examining methods to reduce gate count and ancillary bit requirements. Finally, the automatic design of encoders will be discussed, leveraging reversible circuit synthesis—a vital component in communication systems.