Call for Papers: JXCDC Special Issue

Special Topic on Non-traditional Computing for Energy Efficiency

Guest Editors

Kerem Y. Camsari, University of California Santa Barbara, camsari@ucsb.edu
Supriyo Datta, Purdue University, datta@purdue.edu

Editor-in-Chief

Azad Naeemi, Georgia Institute of Technology, azad@gatech.edu

Aim and Scope

Computing now consumes a significant portion of global electricity production, with AI and data center workloads projected to reach larger scales if current trends continue. The continued success of computing technologies depends on dramatic improvements in energy efficiency across devices, circuits, and systems. While CMOS scaling has powered decades of progress, it now faces fundamental limits in power and density and is increasingly mismatched to the needs of data-intensive applications such as artificial intelligence, optimization, and edge computing. This has motivated a broad search for non-traditional computing approaches that harness physical dynamics, stochasticity, memory-in-logic integration, and new materials to move beyond the von Neumann paradigm.

Non-traditional computing spans a wide spectrum: from new devices such as spintronic, ferroelectric, photonic, superconducting, and phase-transition elements, to oscillator and probabilistic networks, to hybrid CMOS + X architectures that co-design physics and algorithms. These approaches promise energy savings through new forms of computation rooted in natural dynamics. Realizing this potential requires coordinated advances across the technology stack. Their impact depends on bridging scales from material and device physics, to compact models, to system-level demonstrations and applications in machine learning, optimization, and scientific computing.

This Special Topic of the IEEE Journal on Exploratory Solid-State Computational Devices and Circuits (JxCDC) will highlight advances in energy-efficient non-traditional computing that show the potential for significant reductions in power consumption across devices, circuits, architectures, and algorithms. We invite contributions showing physical realizations, modeling, simulation, and co-design strategies that push the frontiers of exploratory computing beyond conventional computing paradigms.

Should we replace “CMOS” with “computing paradigms”, or something like that? Otherwise, one may assume that this ST includes paper that present beyond-CMOS devices that might be used in traditional circuits.

Topics of Interest

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Device primitives: spintronic, ferroelectric, photonic, superconducting, resistive, correlated-electron, and phase-transition devices for non-traditional computing
• Stochastic and dynamical elements: probabilistic bits, noisy switching devices, oscillator and neuromorphic circuits, networks exploiting natural dynamics
• Circuits and architectures: neuromorphic processors, memory-in-logic, hybrid CMOS + X systems (e.g., CMOS-spintronic, CMOS-memristive), distributed and parallel architectures such as Ising and oscillator networks
• Modeling and simulation: first principles and physics-based models, compact device models, multiscale frameworks linking materials to circuits, benchmarking methodologies
• Algorithm-hardware co-design: physics-inspired algorithms leveraging stochasticity and dynamics, hybrid probabilistic-deterministic implementations, and frameworks for large-scale optimization and generative AI
• Quantum-inspired approaches: tensor networks, variational algorithms implemented classically, quantum annealing inspired architectures
• Experimental validations: prototype demonstrations, proof-of-concept systems, comparative studies with CMOS baselines
• Applications: energy-efficient hardware for generative AI, machine learning, combinatorial optimization, scientific computing
• Cross-cutting issues: variability and noise as computational resources, reliability and scalability, heterogeneous integration with CMOS, and energy-efficiency metrics across devices and systems

Submission Guidelines

Submit your paper through the JXCDC submission site.

Deadlines

• Open for Submission: October 15, 2025
• Submission Deadline: January 15, 2026
• First Notification: February 15, 2026
• Revision Submission: March 1, 2026
• Final Decision: March 15, 2026
• Online Special Topic Publication: April 1, 2026

Papers submitted earlier than the submission deadline will be reviewed upon submission and will get published earlier than the timeline listed above.