New electronic chip delivers smarter, light-powered AI

Nanowerk  November 18, 2020
Realization of a single imaging unit with a combination of in‐built memory and signal processing capability is imperative to deploy efficient brain‐like vision systems. An international team of researchers (Australia, USA – Colorado State University, UC Berkeley, China) has designed a neuromorphic imaging element based on a fully light‐modulated 2D semiconductor in a simple reconfigurable phototransistor structure. This standalone device exhibits inherent characteristics that enable neuromorphic image pre‐processing and recognition. They exploited the unique photo response induced by oxidation‐related defects in 2D black phosphorus to achieve visual memory, wavelength‐selective multibit programming, and erasing functions, which allow in‐pixel image pre‐processing. They demonstrated the neuromorphic computation by machine learning to classify numbers and recognize images with an accuracy of over 90%. The devices provide a promising approach toward neurorobotics, human–machine interaction technologies, and scalable bionic systems with visual data storage/buffering and processing…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE.