On the invariance of Lazzaro circuit model

Abstract

A well known circuit - due to Lazzaro - for WTA neural applications is considered. It is a current mode low voltage network based on subthreshold MOS devices. The authors show that the circuit model does not guarantee by itself that all transistors keep staying in the subthreshold region. To this goal, supplementary conditions on the range of input and bias currents are derived. This results in a synthesis procedure which is simple and flexible and takes into account an input-output performance as well. Numerical examples are also given.