paper

Reduction and IR-drop compensations techniques for reliable neuromorphic computing systems

Publication Date:
Publication Date
6 November 2014

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Abstract

Neuromorphic computing system (NCS) is a promising architecture to combat the well-known memory bottleneck in Von Neumann architecture. The recent breakthrough on memristor devices made an important step toward realizing a low-power, small-footprint NCS on-a-chip. However, the currently low manufacturing reliability of nano-devices and the voltage IR-drop along metal wires and memristors arrays severely limits the scale of memristor crossbar based NCS and hinders the design scalability. In this work, we propose a novel system reduction scheme that significantly lowers the required dimension of the memristor crossbars in NCS while maintaining high computing accuracy. An IR-drop compensation technique is also proposed to overcome the adverse impacts of the wire resistance and the sneak-path problem in large memristor crossbar designs. Our simulation results show that the proposed techniques can improve computing accuracy by 27.0% and 38.7% less circuit area compared to the original NCS design.

Affiliation
University of Pittsburgh
Country
USA
Affiliation
Duke University
IEEE Region
Region 03 (Southeastern U.S.)
Email
Country
USA
Affiliation
Duke University
IEEE Region
Region 03 (Southeastern U.S.)
Email
Affiliation
Air Force Research Laboratory