LUCIstack 1.0¶

Today's infrastructure for computation is centered on digital computation. For decades, we have gotten used to thinking about computation strictly in terms of stored-program computers: Load an instruction from memory, load data from memory, progress the data, store result back into memory. Rinse and repeat. Even when accelerator cards -- think of GPUs -- come into play, the same abstraction holds. This abstraction is implemented deep into software stacks for today's computing, from the user-facing and library layer, through compilers down to computer's OS' and BIOS.

Anabrid's hybrid analog computers work differently. For once, they do not have persistent memory and operate with a continuous time scale, solving certain problems much more natural than via discrete, digital computing. However, new approaches lead to new abstractions, which in turn requires a thorough redesign of the software stack for computation. anabrid's LUCIstack is the result of this overhaul.

LUCIstack is a set of software components that implement abstractions for analog computing computing in the 21st century. Starting from the firmware, the stack offers the functionality required for lowering mathematical problems to circuits for analog computing. At present, both anabrid's LUCIDAC and REDAC devices are supported. The protocols used are open source, hence third parties may contribute their own components and modify the stack as desired.

Structure of the stack¶

Like in traditional software stacks for digital computing, the LUCIstack combines multiple components that live at different layers of abstractions, each communicating with the layer above and below:

The following table lists the individual components of the stack, showing which components are currently open resp. closed source and where additional information can be found. Note that this might get updated in the future when licenses or components change.

Component	Usage	Status	License	Resources / Docs
REDAC computations library	Library of algorithms and solutions of various problems using analog computers	Internal use only
lucihub	Cloud access to deployments of the LUCIstack, similar to HPC job scheduling systems	In production	Proprietary	https://anabrid.github.io/lucihub/
redacc	Intermediate representation base don MLIR/LLVM for analog computing and compiler lowering systems of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) onto anabrid's devices	Available for cooperation partners, pyredacc client public		https://pypi.org/project/pyredacc/
pybrid-computing	pybrid in short, runtime and "assembler level" for analog computers, interfacing directly with anabrid's devices	In production, source release in near future	MIT license	https://anabrid.github.io/pybrid-computing/
hybrid-controller	Firmware for LUCIDAC/REDAC line of devices	In production	Proprietary, binaries available	https://github.com/anabrid/lucidac-resources

"Internal use only" in this table refers to projects that have not been made available to third-parties, neither publicly nor under an NDA. Please refer to the abstractions guide for more detailed information on the components.

Deprecated components¶

Before the integration of LUCIstack, there was an software stack specifically for the LUCIDAC device, fully open sourced. While the development of these components has been ceased and the components archived, they still work with current-gen LUCIDAC devices and might therefor be useful for people interested in exploring their LUCIDAC devices further:

Component	Usage	Status	License	Resources / Docs
lucipy	Self-contained runtime and mini-compiler for the LUCIDAC in Python	Superceded by pybrid, lucipy syntax was integrated into pybrid as optional syntax	MIT OR GPL-2.0-or-later	https://github.com/anabrid/lucipy
lucidac-firmware	Open source firmware for the LUCIDAC device	Superceded by firmware binaries	MIT OR GPL-2.0-or-later	https://github.com/anabrid/lucidac-firmware

Please note that there is no support by anabrid GmbH for any of these deprecated components!