Stochastic Switching Circuit Synthesis

Abstract

In his 1938 Master's Thesis, Shannon demonstrated that any Boolean function can be realized by a switching relay circuit, leading to the development of deterministic digital logic. Here, we replace each classical switch with a probabilistic switch (pswitch). We present algorithms for synthesizing circuits closed with a desired probability, including an algorithm that generates optimal size circuits for any binary fraction. We also introduce a new duality property for series-parallel stochastic switching circuits. Finally, we construct a universal probability generator which maps deterministic inputs to arbitrary probabilistic outputs. Potential applications exist in the analysis and design of stochastic networks in biology and engineering.