Fifty years of Electronic Hardware Implementations of First and Higher Order Neural Networks

Abstract

This chapter celebrates 50 years of first and higher order neural network (HONN) implementations in terms of the physical layout and structure of electronic hardware, which offers high speed, low latency, compact, low cost, low power, mass produced systems. Low latency is essential for practical applications in real time control for which software implementations running on CPUs are too slow. The literature review chapter traces the chronological development of electronic neural networks (ENN) discussing selected papers in detail from analog electronic hardware, through probabilistic RAM, generalizing RAM, custom silicon Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) circuit, Neuromorphic chips, pulse stream interconnected neurons to Application Specific Integrated circuits (ASICs) and Zero Instruction Set Chips (ZISCs). Reconfigurable Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are given particular attention as the most recent generation incorporate Digital Signal Processing (DSP) units to provide full System on Chip (SoC) capability offering the possibility of real-time, on-line and on-chip learning.