A Single Schottky Barrier MOSFET-Based Leaky Integrate and Fire Neuron for Neuromorphic Computing

In this brief, a Schottky Barrier MOSFET (SB-MOSFET) based on Impact Ionization mechanism is used to design a leaky integrate and fire (LIF) neuron with considerable enhancement in area, energy and cost is proposed. Using 2D calibrated simulation, we confirmed that SB-MOSFET LIF is able to replicate the neuron behavior precisely without using external circuitry. The proposed LIF neuron shows significantly lower energy per spike of ~4 pJ/spike, which is lowest among the single transistor based neurons present in the literature. The recognition precision of 89.2% has been accomplished for Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology (MNIST) image. Besides this, SB-MOSFET doesn’t require any doped regions, therefore it can be fabricated with low thermal budget.