A Neuromorphic Chip That Imitates the ON Brisk Transient Ganglion Cell Set in the Retinas of Rabbits

In this paper, a new CMOS design methodology is proposed to implement CMOS neuromorphic chips which imitate the ON brisk transient ganglion cell (GC) set of rabbits' retinas. The measurement results on the fabricated CMOS neuromorphic chip are consistent with the biological measurement results. Thus, the biological functions of the chip have been successfully verified. It can be used to understand more biological behaviors and visual language of retinas under different input optical images which have not yet been tested in biological experiments. Based on the results, the full GC sets of retina can be designed. Thus, many potential applications of retinal chips on motion sensors, computer vision, retinal prosthesis, and biomedical devices are feasible.

[1]  F. Werblin,et al.  Vertical interactions across ten parallel, stacked representations in the mammalian retina , 2001, Nature.

[2]  P.-F. Ruedi.  Motion detection silicon retina based on event correlations , 1996, Proceedings of Fifth International Conference on Microelectronics for Neural Networks.

[3]  Andreas G. Andreou,et al.  A Contrast Sensitive Silicon Retina with Reciprocal Synapses , 1991, NIPS.

[4]  Kwabena Boahen,et al.  A retinomorphic vision system , 1996, IEEE Micro.

[5]  Chung-Yu Wu,et al.  Analysis and design of a CMOS angular velocity- and direction-selective rotation sensor with a retinal Processing circuit , 2004 .

[6]  Shih-Chi Liu,et al.  A neuromorphic aVLSI model of global motion processing in the fly , 2000 .

[7]  Chung-Yu Wu,et al.  A low-photocurrent CMOS retinal focal-plane sensor with a pseudo-BJT smoothing network and an adaptive current Schmitt trigger for scanner applications , 2004 .

[8]  Kwabena Boahen,et al.  A 48,000 pixel, 590,000 transistor silicon retina in current-mode subthreshold CMOS , 1994, Proceedings of 1994 37th Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems.

[9]  Chung-Yu Wu,et al.  An improved BJT-based silicon retina with tunable image smoothing capability , 1999, IEEE Trans. Very Large Scale Integr. Syst..

[10]  Andreas G. Andreou,et al.  Silicon retina for motion computation , 1991, 1991., IEEE International Sympoisum on Circuits and Systems.

[11]  Kwabena Boahen,et al.  Optic nerve signals in a neuromorphic chip I: Outer and inner retina models , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[12]  Andreas G. Andreou,et al.  Current-mode subthreshold MOS circuits for analog VLSI neural systems , 1991, IEEE Trans. Neural Networks.

[13]  D C Van Essen,et al.  Information processing in the primate visual system: an integrated systems perspective. , 1992, Science.

[14]  H. Jiang,et al.  A 2-D velocity- and direction-selective sensor with BJT-based silicon retina and temporal zero-crossing detector , 1999 .

[15]  Andreas G. Andreou,et al.  A silicon retina for 2-D position and motion computation , 1995, Proceedings of ISCAS'95 - International Symposium on Circuits and Systems.

[16]  Tetsuya Yagi,et al.  An analog VLSI chip emulating sustained and transient response channels of the vertebrate retina , 2003, IEEE Trans. Neural Networks.

[17]  Kwabena Boahen,et al.  Optic nerve signals in a neuromorphic chip II: testing and results , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[18]  Chung-Yu Wu,et al.  A learnable cellular neural network structure with ratio memory for image processing , 2002 .

[19]  Chung-Yu Wu,et al.  A new structure of the 2-D silicon retina , 1995 .

[20]  Tamás Roska,et al.  A CNN framework for modeling parallel processing in a mammalian retina , 2002, Int. J. Circuit Theory Appl..

[21]  Dávid Bálya,et al.  Retina model with real time implementation , 2005, 2005 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems.

[22]  Misha Mahowald,et al.  A silicon model of early visual processing , 1993, Neural Networks.

[23]  Tobi Delbrück,et al.  Silicon retina with correlation-based, velocity-tuned pixels , 1993, IEEE Trans. Neural Networks.

[24]  Chung-Yu Wu,et al.  A new structure for the silicon retina , 1992, 1992 International Technical Digest on Electron Devices Meeting.

[25]  Tobi Delbrück,et al.  Direction Selective Silicon Retina that Uses Null Inhibition , 1991, NIPS.

[26]  Carver A. Mead,et al.  Analog VLSI Phototransduction by continuous-time, adaptive, logarithmic photoreceptor circuits , 1995 .

[27]  Herbert Jägle,et al.  Reorganization of human cortical maps caused by inherited photoreceptor abnormalities , 2002, Nature Neuroscience.

[28]  Tamás Roska,et al.  Implementing a retinal visual language in CNN: a neuromorphic study , 2001, ISCAS 2001. The 2001 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (Cat. No.01CH37196).

[29]  Chung-Yu Wu,et al.  A CMOS focal-plane motion sensor with BJT-based retinal smoothing network and modified correlation-based algorithm , 2002 .

[30]  Botond Roska,et al.  The movies in our eyes. , 2007, Scientific American.

[31]  Antonio Torralba,et al.  An efficient neuromorphic analog network for motion estimation , 1999 .

[32]  Kwabena Boahen,et al.  Retinomorphic chips that see quadruple images , 1999, Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Microelectronics for Neural, Fuzzy and Bio-Inspired Systems.

[33]  R. Etienne-Cummings,et al.  A foveated silicon retina for two-dimensional tracking , 2000 .

[34]  F S Werblin,et al.  Three Levels of Lateral Inhibition: A Space–Time Study of the Retina of the Tiger Salamander , 2000, The Journal of Neuroscience.