An Aqueous Analog MAC Machine

Abstract

Using ions in aqueous milieu for signal processing, like in biological circuits, may potentially lead to a bioinspired information processing platform. Studies, however, have focused on individual ionic diodes and transistors rather than circuits comprising many such devices. Here a 16 × 16 array of new ionic transistors is developed in an aqueous quinone solution. Each transistor features a concentric ring electrode pair with a disk electrode at the center. The electrochemistry of these electrodes in the solution provides the basis for the transistor operation. The ring pair electrochemically tunes the local electrolytic concentration to modulate the disk's Faradaic reaction rate. Thus, the disk current as a Faradaic reaction to the disk voltage is gated by the ring pair. The 16 × 16 array of these transistors performs analog multiply-accumulate (MAC) operations, a computing modality hotly pursued for low-power artificial neural networks. This exploits the transistor's operating regime where the disk current is a multiplication of the disk voltage and a weight parameter tuned by the ring pair gating. Such disk currents from multiple transistors are summated in a global reference electrode to complete a MAC task. This ionic circuit demonstrating analog computing is a step toward sophisticated aqueous ionics.

Keywords: analog computing; artificial neural networks; bioinspired engineering; electrochemical transistors; electrochemistry; ionic transistors; neuromorphic engineering.