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Type: 
Journal
Description: 
Spiking neural networks (SNNs) are a computational tool in which the information is coded into spikes, as in some parts of the brain, differently from conventional neural networks (NNs) that compute over real-numbers. Therefore, SNNs can implement intelligent information extraction in real-time at the edge of data acquisition and correspond to a complementary solution to conventional NNs working for cloud-computing. Both NN classes face hardware constraints due to limited computing parallelism and separation of logic and memory. Emerging memory devices, like resistive switching memories, phase change memories, or memristive devices in general are strong candidates to remove these hurdles for NN applications. The well-established training procedures of conventional NNs helped in defining the desiderata for memristive device dynamics implementing synaptic units. The generally agreed requirements are a linear evolution of memristive conductance upon stimulation with train of identical pulses and a symmetric conductance change for conductance increase and decrease. Conversely, little work has been done to understand the main properties of memristive devices supporting efficient SNN operation. The reason lies in the lack of a background theory for their training. As a consequence, requirements for NNs have been taken as a reference to develop memristive devices for SNNs. In the present work, we show that, for efficient CMOS/memristive SNNs, the requirements for synaptic memristive dynamics are very different from the needs of a conventional NN. System-level simulations of a SNN trained to classify hand-written digit …
Publisher: 
Frontiers
Publication date: 
1 Jan 2021
Authors: 

Stefano Brivio, Denys RB Ly, Elisa Vianello, Sabina Spiga

Biblio References: 
Volume: 15 Pages: 27
Origin: 
Frontiers in neuroscience