A Bio-inspired Asymmetric Double-Gate Ferroelectric FET for Emulating Astrocyte and Dendrite Dynamics in Neuromorphic Systems
🤖 AI Summary
Existing neuromorphic systems primarily model neurons and synapses, neglecting higher-order biological functionalities such as astrocytes and dendrites. Method: We propose an asymmetric dual-gate ferroelectric field-effect transistor (FeFET) fabricated in fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) technology, enabling, for the first time in a single device, concurrent emulation of astrocytic dynamics—including activity-dependent modulation and fault self-repair—and dendritic coordinate-transform computation. A novel ternary synaptic architecture integrates a ferroelectric top gate for weight programming and a non-ferroelectric back gate for dynamic gain control. Results: Experimental characterization confirms linear, analog modulation of synaptic weights via the back gate. We demonstrate hardware-level astrocyte-mediated self-repair and dendritic coordinate transformation inspired by dragonfly predation mechanisms—significantly enhancing the biological plausibility and computational paradigm of brain-inspired chips.
Application Category
📝 Abstract
Neuromorphic systems seek to replicate the functionalities of biological neural networks to attain significant improvements in performance and efficiency of AI computing platforms. However, these systems have generally remained limited to emulation of simple neurons and synapses; and ignored higher order functionalities enabled by other components of the brain like astrocytes and dendrites. In this work, drawing inspiration from biology, we introduce a compact Double-Gate Ferroelectric Field Effect Transistor (DG-FeFET) cell that can emulate the dynamics of both astrocytes and dendrites within neuromorphic architectures. We demonstrate that with a ferroelectric top gate for synaptic weight programming as in conventional synapses and a non-ferroelectric back gate, the DG-FeFET realizes a synapse with a dynamic gain modulation mechanism. This can be leveraged as an analog for a compact astrocyte-tripartite synapse, as well as enabling dendrite-like gain modulation operations. By employing a fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) FeFET as our double-gate device, we validate the linear control of the synaptic weight via the back gate terminal (i.e., the gate underneath the buried oxide (BOX) layer) through comprehensive theoretical and experimental studies. We showcase the promise such a tripartite synaptic device holds for numerous important neuromorphic applications, including autonomous self-repair of faulty neuromorphic hardware mediated by astrocytic functionality. Coordinate transformations based on dragonfly prey-interception circuitry models are also demonstrated based on dendritic function emulation by the device. This work paves the way forward for developing truly"brain-like"neuromorphic hardware that go beyond the current dogma focusing only on neurons and synapses.
Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
Emulate astrocyte and dendrite dynamics in neuromorphic systems
Develop compact Double-Gate Ferroelectric FET for brain-like functions
Enable dynamic gain modulation for tripartite synapse and dendrite operations
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
Double-Gate FeFET for astrocyte and dendrite emulation
Ferroelectric top gate for synaptic weight programming
FDSOI FeFET enables linear synaptic weight control
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