Asynchronous Digital Neuron

Asynchronous Digital Neuron

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An FPGA design that implements a small asynchronous counter with varying trigger inputs which fires an output pulse once a given threshold is reached.

Most synthetic neural networks are implemented on synchronous (clocked) hardware using discretized data (except for those impressive but expensive memristor-analog-circuit ASICS). I wish to create a synthetic neural network which is more like our biological ones, which are asynchronous, i.e. continuous in the time domain. Whether or not biological entities are using discretized data is more difficiult to answer because we use discrete axon pulses but the time between them is continuously varied to create pulse-frequency coded analog signals, which are then translated to an analog membrane potential on the other side of the synapse (but in discrete packets of chemicals which interlock with discrete receptors while traversing the synapse). Biological neural networks probably evolved to use some neat exploits when switching the data between those forms.

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