A Flexible Artificial Synapse for Neuromorphic System

Kunlong Yang1, Sijian Yuan2, Yiqiang Zhan2, Lirong Zheng2, Fernando Seoane 3-5
1 School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology and Health, KTH Royal Institution of Technology, Stockholm,
Sweden. Email: kunyan@kth.se
2State Key Laboratory of ASIC and System, SIST, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
3Department for Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
4Department of Biomedical Engineering, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
5Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås, Borås, Sweden.

Abstract as few multi-level states number and poor stability, thus

remaining far from actual practical applications [2,3].
Neuromorphic computing, as a new paradigm, highlighted In this work, a flexible memristive transistor was
for its highly parallel, energy efficient features, has attracted designed and fabricated to realize the artificial synapse. It
a lot of attention. The hardware implementation for a exhibits variable channel resistance over the stimulation
neuromorphic system proposes the strong desire for suitable history. Together with the material stability and simple
building blocks. The synaptic device is a very promising fabricating process, a suitable flexible artificial synapse was
solution because of its stimulation-history-related response, developed for the wearable neuromorphic system. The
which fits the nature of a neural network. In this work, an feasibility of the device being used as a building block in
artificial synapse based on a memristive transistor fabricated neuromorphic system was further proved with a pattern
by a simple process is realized. The device not only shows classification simulation task using the experiment data.
multi-level states which is the main feature of a memristor
Experiments
and is essential to hardware implementation neuromorphic
system, but also exhibits physical flexibility, a feature that
Fig. 1a shows the schematic of the synaptic transistor.
supports wearable and portable electronics. On this basis, a Polyimide film (DuPont Kapton, thickness 75µm) was
proof-of-feasibility simulation using the experimental data is chosen as the flexible substrate for its outstanding physical
performed to realize the pattern classification. and chemical stability. The device adopted a conventional
Keywords—Flexible, Memristive, Neuromorphic, Synapse bottom gate bottom contact (BGBC) field effect transistor
Introduction structure. The gate, source, and drain electrode regions were
firstly defined by photolithography, then 8nm Cr and 50nm
Neuromorphic computing is inspired in the human brain, Au electrodes were prepared by thermal evaporation and the
and therefore features highly parallel, energy efficient and lift-off process. A 20nm Al2O3 dielectric layer was grown
robust computation, making it a promising candidate to break using atomic layer deposition (ALD). The prepared
through the bottleneck o traditional computing [1]. If the architectures were immersed into the composite solution
Post-synaptic
(a)
SWCNTs/poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-co-bithio-phene) (F8T2)
neuromorphic system can be flexible and wearable, a system Pre-synaptic Neuron
with both high-performance and high-portability will be in toluene (0.2 mg/mL)
neuron for 7.5h to deposit a thin film in a
born, and it will exceed the existing systems in various ways. pre-defined channel area with a length of 20µm and a width
of 50µm. For the performed electrical and performance
The artificial synapses whose weights can change characterizations was used the Agilent B1500A
between neuronal activation, are critical components in a semiconductor device analyzer using a probe station.
neuromorphic system. So far, although there are many Al2O3
devices can be used as artificial synapses [1], reports about Results and discussion
PI
artificial synapses on flexible substrate are rare, and most of
them are in the primary stage and had some limitations such Fig. 1b shows a typical current–voltage
Au Gate (I–V)
SWCNTs/F8T2
(a) Post-synaptic (b)
Pre-synaptic Neuron 800
neuron SWCNT
H2 O/O2
400 3
Vd<0 4
I d s(n A )

0
1
Al2O3 2 H2 O/O2 SWCNT
PI -4 0 0
Vd>0
-8 0 0
Au Gate SWCNTs/F8T2 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6
V ds (V)
(b)
Fig. 1 (a) Schematic of the artificial synapse. (b) Pinched Ids-Vds Hysteresis loop. And the insets show the working principle.
800
SWCNT
H2 O/O2
400 3
Vd<0 4
I d s(n A )

0
1
2 H2 O/O2 SWCNT
-4 0 0
Vd>0
-8 0 0
-6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6
V ds (V)
characteristics of the device while Vg was set to 0V. The function was realized by training and processing of a
pinched hysteresis loop across the point I=0, V=0 can be neuromorphic network with 26 inputs and three outputs (Fig.
seen as a proof of memristive features [4]. The insets 3a). Thus 3*26 synapses were used to build this neural
illustrate the mechanism. The electrons can be trapped network, and each synapse consisted a differential pair, two
through the H2O/O2 redox couple near the channel-dielectric memristive transistors, one for potentiation and the other for
interface and induce electrical screen of the gate electrical depression, to make synaptic weights swing around zero. In
field thus change the channel current [5]. The population of this neuromorphic network, the Manhattan update rule was
trapped electrons was affected by the gate electrical field. chosen for training the system and updating synapse weights.
The long detrapping time was the source of the memory Fig. 3b shows the evolution of the outputs after each learning
44 Vds-write=-5V
epoch. After about 5 epochs, the system reached saturation
Vds-write=4V and correctly recognized each pattern (as an example, pattern
22 ‘A’ corresponds to outputs (0.85, -0.85, -0.85)) thus
Vds(V)

Vds-read=-0.1V
Vds (V)

00 indicated the effectivity for the systems.

V read =0.1V
-2
4

-2 V write =4V
2

Conclusion
0
Vds(V)

-2

-4-4 V write =-5V

-4

In conclusion, a flexible artificial synaptic network was

-6
99 100 101 102
Pulse number

10
12 implemented based on a memristive transistor. The
|Ids| (nA)

89 memristive functions were achieved in this artificial synapse

Ids (nA)

6 and its feasibility was further proved by a successful

46 simulated neuromorphic network. This artificial synapse thus
23 offer a new option for the flexible neuromorphic system.
00
References
00 50
50 100
100
Pulse num
150
ber 150
200
200
Pulse number [1] D. S. Jeong, K. M. Kim, S. Kim, B. J. Choi, and C. S. Hwang,
Fig. 2 Response to the 100 4V pulses followed by 100 -5V pulses
“Memristors for Energy-Efficient New Computing Paradigms,” Adv.
in the artificial synapse. Electron. Mater., pp. 1–27, 2016.
effect of the electrical states. [2] Wu, T. W. Kim, T. Guo, F. Li, D. U. Lee, and J. J. Yang, “Mimicking
Classical Conditioning Based on a Single Flexible Memristor,” Adv.
Fig. 2 shows the response of the device to 100 identical Mater., vol. 29, no. 10, p. 1602890--n/a, 2017.
pulses with 4V amplitude and 190ms duration followed by [3] Y. van de Burgt et al., “A non-volatile organic electrochemical device
100 identical pulses with -5V amplitude and same duration. as a low-voltage artificial synapse for neuromorphic computing,” Nat
Mater, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 414–418, Apr. 2017.
And after 160ms of each pulse, the current was measured
under Vds =0.1V (small enough to eliminate the effect [4] D. B. Strukov, G. S. Snider, D. R. Stewart, and R. S. Williams, “The
missing memristor found.,” Nature, vol. 453, no. 7191, pp. 80–3, May
caused by the reading process) to show the current change 2008.
induced by the previous pulse. With these pulses, the [5] M. Qu, H. Li, R. Liu, S.-L. Zhang, and Z.-J. Qiu, “Interaction of
conductivity of the device changed gradually because during bipolaron with the H2O/O2 redox couple causes current hysteresis in
each pulse, the electrons were forced to be trapped organic thin-film transistors.,” Nat. Commun., vol. 5, p. 3185, Jan.
(undernegative pulses) or detrapped (under positive pulses) 2014.
while the effect from the previous pulses remained which
resulted the continuous enhancement (negative pulses).
Using artificial synapses to fabricate a neuron network
using memristive functional is the most convincing evidence
for their value. For demonstration, we simulated a simple
single layer neuromorphic system using properties extracted
from our artificial synapse to perform a classification of
patterns (letter ‘A’,’B’,’C’) in a 5*5 black-white matrix. The
(b)
(a)
V1
f1
V1 V2 V3 V4 V5
V2 I1
V6 V7 V8 V9 V10
V3
V11 V12 V13 V14 V15 f2
I2
....

V16 V17 V18 V19 V20

Vn f3
V21 V22 V23 V24 V25
I3

Input Output
Weights Training
neurons neurons

Fig. 3a) Single-layer perceptron to classify 5*5 binary images. b) Classification results with training epochs.