Volatile Memristor in Leaky Integrate-and-Fire Neurons: Circuit Simulation and Experimental Study

In this paper, circuit implementation of a leaky integrate-and-fire neuron model with a volatile memristor was proposed and simulated in the SPICE simulation environment. We demonstrate that simple leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) neuron models composed of: volatile memristor, membrane capacitance and neuron resistance can mimic spatial and temporal integration, firing function and signal decay. The existing leaky term originates from the recovery of the initial resistive state in the memristor in the spontaneous reset cycle, which is essential for emulating the forgetting process in all-memristive neural networks (MNNs). Furthermore, a diffusive perovskite memristor was used to validate the model where intrinsic memristors’ capacitance acts as neuron membrane capacitance. Good agreement with experimental and simulation results was observed. Volatility, as an inherent property of specific memristors, eliminates the need for usage of an additional peripheral circuit which will reinitialize device state, thus allowing the development of energy-efficient, large scale complex memristive neural networks. The presented circuit level model of LIF neurons can facilitate the design of MNNs.