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Creators/Authors contains: "Sheikhfaal, Shadi"

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  1. Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 1, 2024
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  3. Biological memory structures impart enormous retention capacity while automatically providing vital functions for chronological information management and update resolution of domain and episodic knowledge. A crucial requirement for hardware realization of such cortical operations found in biology is to first design both Short-Term Memory (STM) and Long-Term Memory (LTM). Herein, these memory features are realized via a beyond-CMOS based learning approach derived from the repeated input information and retrieval of the encoded data. We first propose a new binary STM-LTM architecture with composite synapse of Spin Hall Effect-driven Magnetic Tunnel Junction (SHE-MTJ) and capacitive memory bit-cell to mimic the behavior of biological synapses. This STM-LTM platform realizes the memory potentiation through a continual update process using STM-to-LTM transfer, which is applied to Neural Networks based on the established capacitive crossbar. We then propose a hardware-enabled and customized STM-LTM transition algorithm for the platform considering the real hardware parameters. We validate the functionality of the design using SPICE simulations that show the proposed synapse has the potential of reaching ~30.2pJ energy consumption for STM-to-LTM transfer and 65pJ during STM programming. We further analyze the correlation between energy, array size, and STM-to-LTM threshold utilizing the MNIST dataset. 
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  4. In this paper, a probabilistic interpolation recoder (PIR) circuit is developed for deep belief networks (DBNs) with probabilistic spin logic (p-bit)-based neurons. To verify the functionality and evaluate the performance of the PIRs, we have implemented a 784 × 200 × 10 DBN circuit in SPICE for a pattern recognition application using the MNIST dataset. The PIR circuits are leveraged in the last hidden layer to interpolate the probabilistic output of the neurons, which are representing different output classes, through sampling the p-bit’s output values and then counting them in a defined sampling time window. The PIR circuit is proposed as an alternative for conventional interpolation methods which were based on using a resistor capacitor tank to integrate each neuron’s output, followed by an analog-to-digital converter to generate the digital output. The circuit simulation results of PIR circuit exhibit at least 54%, 81%, and 78% reductions in power, energy, and energy-error-product, respectively, compared to previous techniques, without using any of the area-consuming analog components in the interpolation circuit. In addition, PIR circuits provide an inherent single stuck at fault tolerant feature to mitigate both transient and permanent faults at the circuit’s output. Reliability properties of the PIR circuits for single stuck-at faults are shown to be enhanced relative to conventional interpolation without requiring hardware redundancy. 
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  5. State-of-the-art machine learning models have achieved impressive feats of narrow intelligence, but have yet to realize the computational generality, adaptability, and power efficiency of biological brains. Thus, this work aims to improve current neural network models by leveraging the principle that the cortex consists of noisy and imprecise components in order to realize an ultra-low-power stochastic spiking neural circuit that resembles biological neuronal behavior. By utilizing probabilistic spintronics to provide true stochasticity in a compact CMOS-compatible device, an Adaptive Ring Oscillator for as-needed discrete sampling, and a homeostasis mechanism to reduce power consumption, provide additional biological characteristics, and improve process variation resilience, this subthreshold circuit is able to generate sub-nanosecond spiking behavior with biological characteristics at 200mV, using less than 80nW, along with behavioral robustness to process variation. 
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  6. This poster paper describes the authors’ single-year National Science Foundation (NSF) project DRL-1825007 titled, “DCL: Synthesis and Design Workshop on Digitally-Mediated Team Learning” which has been conducted as one of nine awards within NSF-18-017: Principles for the Design of Digital STEM Learning Environments. Beginning in September 2018, the project conducted the activities herein to deliver a three-day workshop on Digitally-Mediated Team Learning (DMTL) to convene, invigorate, and task interdisciplinary science and engineering researchers, developers, and educators to coalesce the leading strategies for digital team learning. The deliverable of the workshop is a White Paper composed to identify one-year, three-year, and five-year research and practice roadmaps for highly-adaptable environments for computer-supported collaborative learning within STEM curricula. As subject to the chronology of events, highlights of the White Paper’s outcomes will be showcased within the poster itself. 
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