Silicon neurons

Citation

Indiveri G, Douglas R & Smith L (2008) Silicon neurons. Scholarpedia, 3 (3), Art. No.: 1887. https://doi.org/10.4249/scholarpedia.1887

Abstract
First paragraph: Silicon neurons emulate the electro-physiological behavior of real neurons. This may be done at many different levels, from simple models (like leaky integrate-and-fire neurons) to models emulating multiple ion channels and detailed morphology. Many different types of hardware implementations of neuron models have been proposed from as early as the 1940's (shortly after the proposition of the McCulloch-Pitts neuron), using whatever technology was available at the time. Hardware implementations were often the only means of modeling neurons and neural computation, until faster digital computers became available. With the advent of cheap computing power and effective neuron modelling tools (such as NEURON and GENESIS), software based neuron simulations have grown in popularity. Hardware emulation is still actively pursued because of very high efficiency and very large scale in implementation that can be obtained by using physical analogies with biological neurons in custom-designed silicon chips (Mead, 1989).

Journal
Scholarpedia: Volume 3, Issue 3

People

Professor Leslie Smith

Emeritus Professor, Computing Science