Spatio - Temporal Chaos in a Coupled System of Ring Oscillators

We have investigated a chaotic circuit utilizing CMOS ring oscillators[1]. The circuit consists of two CMOS ring oscillators and two diodes. A CMOS ring oscillator is used for CMOS process performance test. This oscillator consists of a series of inverter circuits. It has a very simple structure. Therefore, we consider that the proposed circuit is realized very easily. In the past studies, we have shown the bifurcation scenario, have calculated the Lyapunov exponents, have explained physical mechanism of chaos generation and so on. In this study, we investigate spatio-temporal chaos in a coupled system of the ring oscillators. The system consists of many chaotic circuits utilizing CMOS ring oscillators. Because this system utilizes the circuits designed by integrated circuit technology, this study is very important for analysis and applications of large coupled chaotic systems[2]–[5]. We consider that large coupled systems should be realized as VLSI for future studies and future applications. The proposed system is very suitable for integrated circuits. It means that VLSI realization of the system is easily. In Sect. 2 and 3, the chaotic circuit and the coupled system are described. In Sect. 4, simulated results of the coupled system are shown. Some concluding remarks are presented in the Sect. 5.