Hardware annealing in electronic neural networks

A simulated hardware annealing process for electronic neural circuits is derived from the analogy between the temperature in a Boltzmann machine and the amplifier gain in a VLSI chip. Here, varying the amplifier gain is equivalent to changing the temperature of the probability function in a Boltzman machine. Decrease in the amplifier voltage gain is equivalent to temperature increase. The beginning and final annealing temperatures for the hardware annealing can be precisely determined. Theory and experimental results on a 4-b Hopfield analog-to-digital converters with simulated annealing are presented.