Design of a new CMOS Low-Power Analogue Neuron

Abstract

In this paper, a low-power analogue complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) artificial neuron circuit is presented. The analogue neuron is composed of multiplier and programmable activation function circuits. The proposed four-quadrant multiplier has a single ended current output which eliminates the extra summation circuit at the output of the neuron that reduces the chip area as well as power consumption. In addition, programmability of activation function improves the neural network design process while enables the proposed neuron circuit to be used properly in learning algorithms such as back propagation. The most important feature of the proposed circuit is low power consumption and simple circuit topology. The performance of the circuit is confirmed by HSPICE simulations using 0.18 μm CMOS technology parameters. The circuit operates at 1 V supply voltage and consumes only 15 μW. Finally, different neural networks are realized using the proposed neuron circuit, which are successfully used to solve exclusive OR (XOR) problem and region classification problem to verify the accuracy and performance of the proposed circuit.

KEYWORDS:

• CMOS
• Low power
• Analog
• Multiplier
• Sigmoid
• Neural network

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andisheh Ghomi

Andisheh Ghomi was born in Isfahan, Iran, in 1987. She received her BSc and MSc degrees in electrical engineering in 2010 and 2014, respectively. Her research interests include CMOS low-power analogue integrated circuit design for artificial neural networks.

E-mail: [email protected]

Mehdi Dolatshahi

Mehdi Dolatshahi was born in Isfahan, Iran, in 1980. He received the BSc and MSc degrees in electrical engineering in 2003 and 2006, respectively. He received the PhD degree in electrical engineering in 2011 from Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran. He has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering of Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, since 2006 where he is currently an assistant professor. His research interests include VLSI and CMOS low-voltage, low-power analogue and mixed-signal integrated circuit design and optimization as well as CMOS optical communications circuit design. Mehdi Dolatshahi is the corresponding author.

Email: [email protected]