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arXiv · 1711.06507

Neuromorphic computing with multi-memristive synapses

Irem Boybat·Manuel Le Gallo·S. R. Nandakumar·Timoleon Moraitis·Thomas Parnell·Tomas Tuma·Bipin Rajendran·Yusuf Leblebici·Abu Sebastian·Evangelos Eleftheriou
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Abstract

Neuromorphic computing has emerged as a promising avenue towards building the next generation of intelligent computing systems. It has been proposed that memristive devices, which exhibit history-dependent conductivity modulation, could efficiently represent the synaptic weights in artificial neural networks. However, precise modulation of the device conductance over a wide dynamic range, necessary to maintain high network accuracy, is proving to be challenging. To address this, we present a multi-memristive synaptic architecture with an efficient global counter-based arbitration scheme. We focus on phase change memory devices, develop a comprehensive model and demonstrate via simulations the effectiveness of the concept for both spiking and non-spiking neural networks. Moreover, we present experimental results involving over a million phase change memory devices for unsupervised learning of temporal correlations using a spiking neural network. The work presents a significant step towards the realization of large-scale and energy-efficient neuromorphic computing systems.

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Irem Boybat, Manuel Le Gallo, S. R. Nandakumar, Timoleon Moraitis, Thomas Parnell, Tomas Tuma, Bipin Rajendran, Yusuf Leblebici, Abu Sebastian, Evangelos Eleftheriou. 2017-11-17. Neuromorphic computing with multi-memristive synapses. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04933-y

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