A thermodynamically consistent model of finite state machines

Abstract: Finite state machines (FSMs) are a theoretically and practically important model of computation. We propose a general, thermodynamically consistent model of FSMs and characterise the resource requirements of these machines. We model FSMs as time-inhomogeneous Markov chains. The computation is driven by instantaneous manipulations of the energy levels of the states. We calculate the entropy production of the machine, its error probability, and the time required to complete one update step. We find that a sequence of generalised bit-setting operations is sufficient to implement any FSM.