Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Full Version: Learning transistor mimics the brain
You're currently viewing a stripped down version of our content. View the full version with proper formatting.
https://liu.se/en/news-item/laraktig-tra...ar-hjarnan

EXCERPT: A new transistor based on organic materials [...] has the ability to learn, and is equipped with both short-term and long-term memory. The work is a major step on the way to creating technology that mimics the human brain.

Until now, brains have been unique in being able to create connections where there were none before. In a scientific article in Advanced Science, researchers from Linköping University describe a transistor that can create a new connection between an input and an output. They have incorporated the transistor into an electronic circuit that learns how to link a certain stimulus with an output signal, in the same way that a dog learns that the sound of a food bowl being prepared means that dinner is on the way.

A normal transistor acts as a valve that amplifies or dampens the output signal, depending on the characteristics of the input signal. In the organic electrochemical transistor that the researchers have developed, the channel in the transistor consists of an electropolymerised conducting polymer. The channel can be formed, grown or shrunk, or completely eliminated during operation. It can also be trained to react to a certain stimulus, a certain input signal, such that the transistor channel becomes more conductive and the output signal larger.

“It is the first time that real time formation of new electronic components is shown in neuromorphic devices”, says Simone Fabiano, principal investigator in organic nanoelectronics at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Campus Norrköping.

“We have shown that we can induce both short-term and permanent changes to how the transistor processes information, which is vital if one wants to mimic the ways that brain cells communicate with each other”, says Jennifer Gerasimov, postdoc in organic nanoelectronics and one of the authors of the article.

By changing the input signal, the strength of the transistor response can be modulated across a wide range, and connections can be created where none previously existed. This gives the transistor a behaviour that is comparable with that of the synapse, or the communication interface between two brain cells...

MORE: https://liu.se/en/news-item/laraktig-tra...ar-hjarnan