Ion‐Gated Transistor: An Enabler for Sensing and Computing Integration

Abstract

With the rapid development of the Internet of Things, the amount of data we involved in our daily life is growing exponentially, which poses significant challenges for data processing and transmission to the conventional terminal sensors that passively acquire external data. Inspired by biological sensory nervous systems, building artificial intelligent sensory systems with both sensing and computing capability is regarded as a promising way to address these challenges, by which the acquired data can be preprocessed locally and timely before transmitting them to the remote server for further processing. Ion-gated transistors (IGTs), which have been widely used in sensors and have been recently investigated for neuromorphic computing, exhibit great potential in this domain. Herein, the essential operation principles, device structures, and electrical characteristics of IGT are introduced, and the recent developments in biosensors, neuromorphic computing, and intelligent sensors with near-sensor computing and in-sensor computing modes are summarized. To conclude, the current challenges and future development of IGT for intelligent sensory systems are presented.

The Road for 2D Semiconductors in the Silicon Age

“…simultaneous image perception and processing. [210] Moreover, 2D ion-gated transistors [211] and memristors [181,212] have been reported as enablers for the ISC, and ferroelectric channel transistors with 2D ferroelectrics as the channel material have been demonstrated to integrate ultrafast non-volatile memory and neural computing capabilities, [145] which revolutionize conventional ferroelectric memory structures. They show the fastest 40 ns data writing and non-volatile retention, and the minimum excitation/inhibition single event energy consumption of 234/40 fJ (femtojoule).…”

Recent Progress in Transistor‐Based Optoelectronic Synapses: From Neuromorphic Computing to Artificial Sensory System

“…Next, the ionotronic transistor using a highcapacity electrolyte insulator in the dielectric layer is utilized as a transistor-based electrical synapse. [90][91][92][93] The electrolyte insulator for ionotronic transistors consists of insulating matrix and mobile cations. The proton (H þ ), alkali (Li þ , Na þ , and K þ ), and alkaline-earth metal ions (Ca 2þ and Mg 2þ ) with small ionic radii be used as mobile cations in electrolyte insulator.…”

A Marr's Three‐Level Analytical Framework for Neuromorphic Electronic Systems

“…To distinguish between sensory memory and short-term memory, memristors possessing second-order or higher-order state variables are used so that the first-stage sensory memory is stored in the internal states of the devices, such as ion distribution, that the device resistances are unchanged, whereas the following stage of short-term memory is formed by the measurable resistance changes due to the accumulated changes of the internal states. [242,243] Recent reviews [244,245] have also surveyed the reports on the integration of sensors, artificial sensory neurons, and synapses [84,138,[246][247][248][249][250][251][252][253][254][255][256][257][258][259][260][261] that suggest a trend of the integration of sensing, memory, and computing [262,263] (Figure 4b). Future neuromorphic electronic systems may also benefit from sensory memory in executing attentive novelty detection tasks and so on.…”