Modeling and Experimental Demonstration of a Hopfield Network Analog-to-Digital Converter with Hybrid CMOS/Memristor Circuits

Front Neurosci. 2015 Dec 24:9:488. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2015.00488. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to demonstrate the feasibility of building recurrent artificial neural networks with hybrid complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS)/memristor circuits. To do so, we modeled a Hopfield network implementing an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with up to 8 bits of precision. Major shortcomings affecting the ADC's precision, such as the non-ideal behavior of CMOS circuitry and the specific limitations of memristors, were investigated and an effective solution was proposed, capitalizing on the in-field programmability of memristors. The theoretical work was validated experimentally by demonstrating the successful operation of a 4-bit ADC circuit implemented with discrete Pt/TiO2- x /Pt memristors and CMOS integrated circuit components.

Keywords: Hopfield network; analog-to-digital conversion; hybrid circuits; memristor; recurrent neural network; resistive switching.