A Fully Integrated Analog Processing‐in‐Memory System Based on Charge‐Trap Flash Synapse Arrays and Successive Integration‐and‐Rescaling Neurons

The increasing demands of data‐centric applications continue to expose the fundamental bandwidth bottleneck of the von Neumann architecture, where memory and computation are separated. Analog processing‐in‐memory (PIM) offers a promising pathway to overcome this limitation, and charge‐trap flash (CTF) synapses stand out as attractive candidates owing to their scalability, multilevel storage, and complementary metal‐oxide‐semiconductor (CMOS) compatibility. In this work, a hardware‐level analog PIM system is presented that integrates CTF synapse arrays, CMOS‐based wordline drivers, and a novel successive integration‐and‐rescaling (SIR) neuron circuit in a chip‐on‐board configuration. Unlike conventional neuron designs that rely heavily on analog‐to‐digital conversion, the proposed SIR neuron performs bit‐sliced accumulation entirely in the analog domain. This architecture not only minimizes analog‐to‐digital converter overhead but also achieves excellent linearity through input‐node stabilization and functional capacitor separation, thereby enhancing both computational accuracy and area efficiency. The fabricated system is validated through handwritten digit classification on the modified national institute of standards and technology dataset, achieving an accuracy of 72.93%, which is only 3.91 percentage points lower than the software baseline under identical precision. These results underscore the pivotal role of the SIR neuron in bridging device‐level innovations with system‐level integration, positioning CTF‐based analog PIM as a scalable and energy‐efficient platform for neuromorphic computing.

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Publication Details

Journal
Advanced Intelligent Systems
Published
2025-11-06
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202501046
Primary Topic
Advanced Memory and Neural Computing
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

A Fully Integrated Analog Processing‐in‐Memory System Based on Charge‐Trap Flash Synapse Arrays and Successive Integration‐and‐Rescaling Neurons

Woo Young Choi, S. Kim, Minsuk Koo, Yeonwoo Kim
Advanced Intelligent Systems
Advanced Memory and Neural Computing
article

A Fully Integrated Analog Processing‐in‐Memory System Based on Charge‐Trap Flash Synapse Arrays and Successive Integration‐and‐Rescaling Neurons

Woo Young Choi, S. Kim, Minsuk Koo, Yeonwoo Kim
article en

Abstract

The increasing demands of data‐centric applications continue to expose the fundamental bandwidth bottleneck of the von Neumann architecture, where memory and computation are separated. Analog processing‐in‐memory (PIM) offers a promising pathway to overcome this limitation, and charge‐trap flash (CTF) synapses stand out as attractive candidates owing to their scalability, multilevel storage, and complementary metal‐oxide‐semiconductor (CMOS) compatibility. In this work, a hardware‐level analog PIM system is presented that integrates CTF synapse arrays, CMOS‐based wordline drivers, and a novel successive integration‐and‐rescaling (SIR) neuron circuit in a chip‐on‐board configuration. Unlike conventional neuron designs that rely heavily on analog‐to‐digital conversion, the proposed SIR neuron performs bit‐sliced accumulation entirely in the analog domain. This architecture not only minimizes analog‐to‐digital converter overhead but also achieves excellent linearity through input‐node stabilization and functional capacitor separation, thereby enhancing both computational accuracy and area efficiency. The fabricated system is validated through handwritten digit classification on the modified national institute of standards and technology dataset, achieving an accuracy of 72.93%, which is only 3.91 percentage points lower than the software baseline under identical precision. These results underscore the pivotal role of the SIR neuron in bridging device‐level innovations with system‐level integration, positioning CTF‐based analog PIM as a scalable and energy‐efficient platform for neuromorphic computing.

Advanced Intelligent SystemsVol. 8(2)
University of Seoul (KR), Seoul National University (KR), LG (United States) (US), Seoul Semiconductor (South Korea) (KR)
National Research Foundation, Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, National Research Foundation of Korea, IC Design Education Center, Ministry of Science and ICT, South Korea, Korea Semiconductor Research Consortium
Openalex Percentile: Top 67%
Advanced Memory and Neural Computing
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