An electro-photo-sensitive synaptic transistor for edge neuromorphic visual systems.

The practical application of optoelectronic artificial synapses in neuromorphic visual systems is still hindered by their limited functionality, reliability and the challenge of mass production. Here, an electro-photo-sensitive synapse based on a highly reliable amorphous InGaZnO thin-film transistor is demonstrated. Not only does the synapse respond to electrical voltage spikes due to charge trapping/detrapping, but also the weight is modified directly by persistent photocurrent effects under UV-light stimulation. Representative forms of synaptic plasticity, including inhibitory and excitatory postsynaptic currents, frequency-dependent characteristics, short-term to long-term plasticity transitions, and summation effects, are successfully demonstrated. In particular, optoelectronic synergetic modulation leads to reconfigurable excitatory and inhibitory synaptic behaviors, which provides a promising way to achieve the homeostatic regulation of synaptic weights. Moreover, the analogue channel conductance with 100 states is used as the weight update rule to perform MNIST handwritten digit recognition, using system-level LeNet-5 convolutional neural network simulations. The network shows a high recognition accuracy of 95.99% and good tolerance to noisy input patterns. This study highlights the commercial potential of mature optoelectronic InGaZnO transistor technology in edge neuromorphic systems.

Surface Engineering of Polycrystalline Silicon for Long-Term Mechanical Stress Endurance Enhancement in Flexible Low-Temperature Poly-Si Thin-Film Transistors.

The surface morphology in polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) film is an issue regardless of whether conventional excimer laser annealing (ELA) or the newer metal-induced lateral crystallization (MILC) process is used. This paper investigates the stress distribution while undergoing long-term mechanical stress and the influence of stress on electrical characteristics. Our simulated results show that the nonuniform stress in the gate insulator is more pronounced near the polysilicon/gate insulator edge and at the two sides of the polysilicon protrusion. This stress results in defects in the gate insulator and leads to a nonuniform degradation phenomenon, which affects both the performance and the reliability in thin-film transistors (TFTs). The degree of degradation is similar regardless of bending axis (channel-length axis, channel-width axis) or bending type (compression, tension), which means that the degradation is dominated by the protrusion effects. Furthermore, by utilizing long-term electrical bias stresses after undergoing long-tern bending stress, it is apparent that the carrier injection is severe in the subchannel region, which confirms that the influence of protrusions is crucial. To eliminate the influence of surface morphology in poly-Si, three kinds of laser energy density were used during crystallization to control the protrusion height. The device with the lowest protrusions demonstrates the smallest degradation after undergoing long-term bending.