Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gao, Zhengqi, Sun, Fan-Keng, Rohrer, Ron, Boning, Duane S.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.15872
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866910435742056448
author Gao, Zhengqi
Sun, Fan-Keng
Rohrer, Ron
Boning, Duane S.
author_facet Gao, Zhengqi
Sun, Fan-Keng
Rohrer, Ron
Boning, Duane S.
contents In this paper, we leverage a foundational principle of analog electronic circuitry, Kirchhoff's current and voltage laws, to introduce a distinctive class of neural network models termed KirchhoffNet. Essentially, KirchhoffNet is an analog circuit that can function as a neural network, utilizing its initial node voltages as the neural network input and the node voltages at a specific time point as the output. The evolution of node voltages within the specified time is dictated by learnable parameters on the edges connecting nodes. We demonstrate that KirchhoffNet is governed by a set of ordinary differential equations (ODEs), and notably, even in the absence of traditional layers (such as convolution layers), it attains state-of-the-art performances across diverse and complex machine learning tasks. Most importantly, KirchhoffNet can be potentially implemented as a low-power analog integrated circuit, leading to an appealing property -- irrespective of the number of parameters within a KirchhoffNet, its on-chip forward calculation can always be completed within a short time. This characteristic makes KirchhoffNet a promising and fundamental paradigm for implementing large-scale neural networks, opening a new avenue in analog neural networks for AI.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_15872
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle KirchhoffNet: A Scalable Ultra Fast Analog Neural Network
Gao, Zhengqi
Sun, Fan-Keng
Rohrer, Ron
Boning, Duane S.
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Hardware Architecture
In this paper, we leverage a foundational principle of analog electronic circuitry, Kirchhoff's current and voltage laws, to introduce a distinctive class of neural network models termed KirchhoffNet. Essentially, KirchhoffNet is an analog circuit that can function as a neural network, utilizing its initial node voltages as the neural network input and the node voltages at a specific time point as the output. The evolution of node voltages within the specified time is dictated by learnable parameters on the edges connecting nodes. We demonstrate that KirchhoffNet is governed by a set of ordinary differential equations (ODEs), and notably, even in the absence of traditional layers (such as convolution layers), it attains state-of-the-art performances across diverse and complex machine learning tasks. Most importantly, KirchhoffNet can be potentially implemented as a low-power analog integrated circuit, leading to an appealing property -- irrespective of the number of parameters within a KirchhoffNet, its on-chip forward calculation can always be completed within a short time. This characteristic makes KirchhoffNet a promising and fundamental paradigm for implementing large-scale neural networks, opening a new avenue in analog neural networks for AI.
title KirchhoffNet: A Scalable Ultra Fast Analog Neural Network
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Hardware Architecture
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.15872