Photonic integrated neuro-synaptic core for convolutional spiking neural network
Shuiying Xiang, Yuechun Shi, Yahui Zhang, Xingxing Guo, Ling Zheng, Yanan Han, Yuna Zhang, Ziwei Song, Dianzhuang Zheng, Tao Zhang, Yi Li, Xiaojun Zhu, Xiangfei Chen, Min Qiu, Yichen Shen, Wanhua Zheng, Yue Hao
Abstract
Neuromorphic photonic computing has emerged as a competitive computing paradigm to overcome the bottlenecks of the von-Neumann architecture. Linear weighting and nonlinear spike activation are two fundamental functions of a photonic spiking neural network (PSNN). However, they are separately implemented with different photonic materials and devices, hindering the large-scale integration of PSNN. Here, we propose, fabricate and experimentally demonstrate a photonic neuro-synaptic chip enabling the simultaneous implementation of linear weighting and nonlinear spike activation based on a distributed feedback (DFB) laser with a saturable absorber (DFB-SA). A prototypical system is experimentally constructed to demonstrate the parallel weighted function and nonlinear spike activation. Furthermore, a four-channel DFB-SA laser array is fabricated for realizing matrix convolution of a spiking convolutional neural network, achieving a recognition accuracy of 87% for the MNIST dataset. The fabricated neuro-synaptic chip offers a fundamental building block to construct the large-scale integrated PSNN chip.