Statistical memristor modeling and case study in neuromorphic computing

Memristor, the fourth passive circuit element, has attracted increased attention since it was rediscovered by HP Lab in 2008. Its distinctive characteristic to record the historic profile of the voltage/current creates a great potential for future neuromorphic computing system design. However, at the nano-scale, process variation control in the manufacturing of memristor devices is very difficult. The impact of process variations on a memristive system that relies on the continuous (analog) states of the memristors could be significant. We use TiO₂-based memristor as an example to analyze the impact of geometry variations on the electrical properties. A simple algorithm was proposed to generate a large volume of geometry variation-aware three-dimensional device structures for Monte-Carlo simulations. A neuromorphic computing system based on memristor-based bidirectional synapse design is proposed as case study. We analyze and evaluate the robustness of the proposed system in pattern recognition based on massive Monte-Carlo simulations, after considering input defects and process variations.