Digital Spiking Silicon Neuron: Concept and Behaviors in GJ-coupled Network

Silicon neuron is electrical circuit that is analogous to biological neurons. Most spiking silicon neurons comprise analog circuit technology. We propose a new concept of spiking silicon neuron that is composed of only digital circuit technology. The system equations were designed by a mathematical-model-based design method that we proposed for analog silicon neurons in previous works. This allowed us to design a simple digital spiking silicon neuron (DSSN) model that produces rich dynamical behaviors comparable to biological neurons. We analyzed an elemental DSSN model to validate if it possesses fundamental characteristics of neurons, and its behaviors in gap junction (GJ)coupled networks were studied in order to demonstrate its ability to exhibit rich dynamical behaviors.