Method for designing scalable and energy-efficient analog neuromorphic processors

A method of operating a neural network, the method comprising:

• implementing a plurality of neurons in respective circuits;
• producing a continuous-valued membrane potential according to a Growth Transform bounded by an extrinsic energy constraint;
• defining a function of spiking current received from another neuron in the plurality of neurons, and a received electrical current stimulus, as a continuous-valued membrane potential;
• representing network energy consumed by the plurality of neurons as a network energy function;
• minimizing network energy consumed by the plurality of neurons to determine the extrinsic energy constraint;
• modeling synaptic connections among the plurality of neurons as respective transconductances that regulate magnitude of spiking currents received from each of the plurality of neurons by each other of the plurality of neurons;
• and
• encoding the received electrical current stimulus in corresponding continuous-valued membrane potentials of the plurality of neurons.

At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for operating a neural network, wherein when executed by at least one processor, the computer-executable instructions cause the processor to:

• implement a plurality of neurons in respective circuits;
• produce a continuous-valued membrane potential according to a Growth Transform bounded by an extrinsic energy constraint,
• define a function of spiking current received from another neuron in the plurality of neurons, and a received electrical current stimulus, as a continuous-valued membrane potential;
• represent network energy consumed by the plurality of neurons as a network energy function;
• minimize network energy consumed by the plurality of neurons to determine the extrinsic energy constraint;
• model synaptic connections among the plurality of neurons as respective transconductances that regulate magnitude of spiking currents received from each of the plurality of neurons by each other of the plurality of neurons;
• and
• encode the received electrical current stimulus in corresponding continuous-valued membrane potentials of the plurality of neurons.