Multiple valued Hopfield network using single-electron circuits

摘要

We propose the method of implementing the multiple-valued Hopfield network on electronic circuits using the single-electron circuit technology. The single-electron circuit shows quantized behavior in its operation owing to the Coulomb blockade effect in electron tunneling, so the operation of the multiple-valued Hopfield network can be implemented easily by the use of single-electron circuits. We propose a single-electron neuron circuit that can produce a staircase transfer function required for the multiple-valued neuron, and also proposes a method of constructing multiple-valued Hopfield networks by combining the neuron circuits. We design a sample network that implements a problem instance of the quadratic integer optimization. It is shown, by computer simulation, that the sample network can converge to the minimum energy state that represents the correct solution to the problem.