A CMOS rectified linear unit operating in weak inversion for memristive neuromorphic circuits

In this brief we report the design of a CMOS ultra low-power rectified linear unit (ReLU) operating in the weak inversion. The working mechanism of the ReLU circuit is justified by simulation and analysis. This new ReLU circuit is then applied to an analog CMOS-memristive artificial neural network (ANN) for pattern recognition. Simulation shows that the proposed ReLU circuit functions satisfactorily in a memristive ANN, capable of realizing the pattern recognition functionality comparable to a software implementation.