Improved Hopfield Network Optimization Using Manufacturable Three-Terminal Electronic Synapses

We describe via simulation novel optimization algorithms for a Hopfield neural network constructed using manufacturable three-terminal Silicon-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (SONOS) synaptic devices. We first present a computationally-light, memristor-based, highly accurate compact model for the SONOS. Using the compact model, we describe techniques of simulated annealing in Hopfield networks by exploiting imperfect problem definitions, current leakage, and the continuous tunability of the SONOS to enable transient chaotic group dynamics. We project improvements in energy consumption and latency for optimization relative to the best CPUs and GPUs by at least 4 orders of magnitude, and also exceeding the best projected memristor-based hardware; along with a 100-fold increase in error-resilient hardware size (i.e., problem size).