# Physical Analogue Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks based on Reconfigurable Nonlinear-Processing Units

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.07518 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.07518/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 7 Feb 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [A Survey on Neural Network Interpretability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.14261/) (2020)
- [The Computational Limits of Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.05558/) (2020)
- [The Hardware Lottery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.06489/) (2020)
- [KAN or MLP: A Fairer Comparison](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.16674/) (2024)
- [Brain-inspired computing: We need a master plan](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.14517/) (2021)
- [Training of Physical Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.03372/) (2024)
- [KANEL'E: Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks for Efficient LUT-based Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.12850/) (2025)
- [Hardware Acceleration of Kolmogorov-Arnold Network (KAN) for Lightweight Edge Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.11418/) (2024)
- [The hardware is the software](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.18335/) (2023)
- [Dopant Network Processing Units: Towards Efficient Neural-network Emulators with High-capacity Nanoelectronic Nodes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.12371/) (2020)
- [In-Materia Speech Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10434/) (2024)
- [Fully analogue in-memory neural computing via quantum tunneling effect](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.23638/) (2025)
- [Learning Nonlinear Heterogeneity in Physical Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.15340/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs) shift neural computation from linear layers to learnable nonlinear edge functions, but implementing these nonlinearities efficiently in hardware remains an open challenge. Here we introduce a physical analogue KAN architecture in which edge functions are realized in materia using reconfigurable nonlinear-processing units (RNPUs): multi-terminal nanoscale silicon devices whose input-output characteristics are tuned via control voltages. By combining multiple RNPUs into an edge processor and assembling these blocks into a reconfigurable analogue KAN (aKAN) architecture with integrated mixed-signal interfacing, we establish a realistic system-level hardware implementation that enables compact KAN-style regression and classification with programmable nonlinear transformations. Using experimentally calibrated RNPU models and hardware measurements, we demonstrate accurate function approximation across increasing task complexity while requiring fewer or comparable trainable parameters than multilayer perceptrons (MLPs). System-level estimates indicate an energy per inference of roughly 200 pJ and an end-to-end inference latency of roughly 0.6 μs for a representative workload, corresponding to over 100× reduction in energy accompanied by >10× reduction in area compared to a digital fixed-point MLP at similar approximation error. These results establish RNPUs as scalable, hardware-native nonlinear computing primitives and identify analogue KAN architectures as a realistic silicon-based pathway toward energy-, latency-, and footprint-efficient analogue neural-network hardware, particularly for edge inference.