Third-order nanocircuit elements for neuromorphic engineering

Suhas Kumar (), R. Stanley Williams and Ziwen Wang
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Suhas Kumar: Hewlett Packard Labs
R. Stanley Williams: Texas A&M University
Ziwen Wang: Stanford University

Nature, 2020, vol. 585, issue 7826, 518-523

Abstract: Abstract Current hardware approaches to biomimetic or neuromorphic artificial intelligence rely on elaborate transistor circuits to simulate biological functions. However, these can instead be more faithfully emulated by higher-order circuit elements that naturally express neuromorphic nonlinear dynamics1–4. Generating neuromorphic action potentials in a circuit element theoretically requires a minimum of third-order complexity (for example, three dynamical electrophysical processes)5, but there have been few examples of second-order neuromorphic elements, and no previous demonstration of any isolated third-order element6–8. Using both experiments and modelling, here we show how multiple electrophysical processes—including Mott transition dynamics—form a nanoscale third-order circuit element. We demonstrate simple transistorless networks of third-order elements that perform Boolean operations and find analogue solutions to a computationally hard graph-partitioning problem. This work paves a way towards very compact and densely functional neuromorphic computing primitives, and energy-efficient validation of neuroscientific models.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2735-5

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