Challenges and opportunities for analog neural processing in the deep submicron SoC era

Summary form only given. Merging sensors, processors and actuators defines one prevalent target of modern electronic system design. Bionic prostheses, bio-inspired sensory systems, ambient intelligence, wireless personal area networks, monitoring of physiological parameters, ... define new scenarios for these systems. And pose new challenges for integrated circuit design. New architectures may be needed in connection to some of these scenarios. Also, issues like ultra low-power consumption, on-chip co-existence of analog and digital signals, and incomplete characterization of design primitives, etc. force the exploration of new architectures as well as new circuit techniques. In many cases, inspiration can be gained from nature regarding processor organization, information coding, fault-tolerant operation, adaptive operation, etc. These talk overviews some relevant challenges and opportunities for analog design in these new microelectronic scenarios. Considerations are illustrated through true VLSI mixed-signal chips for vision.