Hybrid Piezoelectric-Magnetic Neurons: A Proposal for Energy-Efficient Machine Learning

This paper proposes a spintronic neuron structure composed of a heterostructure of magnets and a piezoelectric with a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). The operation of the device is simulated using SPICE models. Simulation results illustrate that the energy dissipation of the proposed neuron compared to that of other spintronic neurons exhibits 70% improvement. Compared to CMOS neurons, the proposed neuron occupies a smaller footprint area and operates using less energy. Owing to its versatility and low-energy operation, the proposed neuron is a promising candidate to be adopted in artificial neural network (ANN) systems.