A Compact Artificial Spiking Neuron Using a Sharp-Switching FET With Ultra-Low Energy Consumption Down to 0.45 fJ/Spike

In this article, we first utilize a zero subthreshold swing and zero impact ionization FET (Z2-FET) as an innovative artificial spiking neuron and demonstrate it with CMOS-compatible technology. Owing to the sharp-switching and hysteresis characteristics of Z2-FET, the artificial neuron successfully emulates the key biological neuronal behaviors based on a single device, including threshold-driven spiking and stimulus strength-modulated frequency response. Furthermore, the firing threshold of the neuron is conveniently tuned by the gate voltage, which is helpful in the application of spiking neural networks (SNN). A preliminary endurance up to ${2}\times {10}^{{8}}$ cycles is obtained in the neuron. TCAD simulations further verify the scaling capability of the Z2-FET neuron and its energy consumption is estimated. The results suggest that $\text{Z}^{\vphantom {D^{f}}{2}}$ -FET has great potential for highly compact and energy-efficient artificial spiking neurons.