Device and system level design considerations for analog-non-volatile-memory based neuromorphic architectures

This paper gives an overview of recent progress in the brain-inspired computing field with a focus on implementation using emerging memories as electronic synapses. Design considerations and challenges such as requirements and design targets on multilevel states, device variability, programming energy, array-level connectivity, fan-in/fan-out, wire energy, and IR drop are presented. Wires are increasingly important in design decisions, especially for large systems; and cycle-to-cycle variations have large impact on learning performance.