Characteristic analysis of volatile avalanche diode threshold switching for bionic nerve synapse applications

Abstract The combination of biological neurology and memristive theory has greatly promoted the development of neuromorphic computing. To build a large-scale artificial intelligence alert system, the exploration of bionic synapses compatible with standard processes has become an urgent problem to be solved in the next step. In response to the above application requirements, this paper proposes a volatile avalanche diode threshold switching (VADTS) that is fully compatible with standard semiconductor technology to simulate the various functions of the synapse. Technology computer-aided design device-level simulation can verify the bionic principle of VADTS. The function of VADTS's bionic synapse was verified by the experimental test platform. The results show that under the action of the excitation signal (11.25 V), the device can continuously change from a high-resistance state to a low-resistance state. When the excitation signal is lower than the threshold, VADTS presents a “no adaptation” state of nerve synapses. When the excitation signal is higher than the threshold and changes continuously, the current changes along with the amplitude of the excitation signal, similar to the “sensitization” state of the nerve synapse.