DeepAI AI Chat
Log In Sign Up

A Power Efficient Artificial Neuron Using Superconducting Nanowires

06/29/2019
by   Emily Toomey, et al.
0

With the rising societal demand for more information-processing capacity with lower power consumption, alternative architectures inspired by the parallelism and robustness of the human brain have recently emerged as possible solutions. In particular, spiking neural networks (SNNs) offer a bio-realistic approach, relying on pulses analogous to action potentials as units of information. While software encoded networks provide flexibility and precision, they are often computationally expensive. As a result, hardware SNNs based on the spiking dynamics of a device or circuit represent an increasingly appealing direction. Here, we propose to use superconducting nanowires as a platform for the development of an artificial neuron. Building on an architecture first proposed for Josephson junctions, we rely on the intrinsic nonlinearity of two coupled nanowires to generate spiking behavior, and use electrothermal circuit simulations to demonstrate that the nanowire neuron reproduces multiple characteristics of biological neurons. Furthermore, by harnessing the nonlinearity of the superconducting nanowire's inductance, we develop a design for a variable inductive synapse capable of both excitatory and inhibitory control. We demonstrate that this synapse design supports direct fanout, a feature that has been difficult to achieve in other superconducting architectures, and that the nanowire neuron's nominal energy performance is competitive with that of current technologies.

READ FULL TEXT
02/04/2022

Energy-Efficient High-Accuracy Spiking Neural Network Inference Using Time-Domain Neurons

Due to the limitations of realizing artificial neural networks on preval...
09/03/2015

A compact aVLSI conductance-based silicon neuron

We present an analogue Very Large Scale Integration (aVLSI) implementati...
09/29/2016

Proposal for a Leaky-Integrate-Fire Spiking Neuron based on Magneto-Electric Switching of Ferro-magnets

The efficiency of the human brain in performing classification tasks has...
07/29/2020

A superconducting nanowire spiking element for neural networks

As the limits of traditional von Neumann computing come into view, the b...
06/27/2022

A Coupled Neural Circuit Design for Guillain-Barre Syndrome

Guillain-Barre syndrome is a rare neurological condition in which the hu...
01/28/2012

A Neuron Based Switch: Application to Low Power Mixed Signal Circuits

Human brain is functionally and physically complex. This 'complexity' ca...