Circuit design criteria for stability in a class of lateral inhibition neural networks

In the analog VLSI implementation of neural systems, it is sometimes convenient to build lateral inhibition networks by using a locally connected on-chip resistive grid. A serious problem of unwanted spontaneous oscillation often arises with these circuits and renders them unusable in practice. The authors report a design approach that guarantees that such a system will be stable, even though the values of designed elements in the resistive grid can be imprecise and the location and values of parasitic elements can be unknown. The method is based on a mathematical analysis using Tellegen´s theorem and the Popov criterion. The criteria are local in the sense that no overall analysis of the interconnected system is required for their use, empirical in the sense that they involve only measurable frequency response data on the individual cells, and robust in the sense that they are not affected by unmodeled parasitic resistances and capacitances in the interconnect network