arrow
Return

Analogue speech recognition based on physical computing

delete2025-09-17
delete0
delete
OA
AI
M
Mohamadreza Zolfagharinejad
J
Julian Büchel
L
Lorenzo Cassola
S
Sachin Kinge
S
Syed Ghazi Sarwat
A
Abu Sebastian
W
Wilfred G. van der Wiel *
DOI:10.1038/s41586-025-09501-1delete
deleteOriginal
deleteShare
deleteSave
View PDF
Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
With the rise of decentralized computing, such as in the Internet of Things, autonomous driving and personalized healthcare, it is increasingly important to process time-dependent signals ‘at the edge’ efficiently: right at the place where the temporal data are collected, avoiding time-consuming, insecure and costly communication with a centralized computing facility (or ‘cloud’). However, modern-day processors often cannot meet the restrained power and time budgets of edge systems because of intrinsic limitations imposed by their architecture (von Neumann bottleneck) or domain conversions (analogue to digital and time to frequency). Here we propose an edge temporal-signal processor based on two in-materia computing systems for both feature extraction and classification, reaching near-software accuracy for the TI-46-Word1 and Google Speech Commands2 datasets. First, a nonlinear, room-temperature reconfigurable-nonlinear-processing-unit3,4 layer realizes analogue, time-domain feature extraction from the raw audio signals, similar to the human cochlea. Second, an analogue in-memory computing chip5, consisting of memristive crossbar arrays, implements a compact neural network trained on the extracted features for classification. With submillisecond latency, reconfigurable-nonlinear-processing-unit-based feature extraction consuming roughly 300 nJ per inference, and the analogue in-memory computing-based classifier using around 78 µJ (with potential for roughly 10 µJ)6, our findings offer a promising avenue for advancing the compactness, efficiency and performance of heterogeneous smart edge processors through in materia computing hardware. A temporal-signal processor based on two in-materia computing hardware platforms—reconfigurable nonlinear-processing units (RNPUs) and analogue in-memory computing (AIMC)—is used for both feature extraction and classification, advancing compactness, efficiency, and performance of heterogeneous smart edge devices.
Keywords:
edge computing
in-materia computing
speech recognition
reconfigurable nonlinear-processing unit
analogue in-memory computing
AI Summary

AI Summary

Key information extracted from the uploaded paper, including a brief overview, abstract, background, key highlights, visual analysis, and future outlook.

Journal

Nature cover
Nature
IF:
48.5
Papers:
1.8W
Citations:
96.5W

Organization

U
university of twente
Scholars:
1.5W
Papers: 1.4W
Citations: 9
T
toyota motor europe
Scholars:
12
Papers: 9
Citations: 0
I
ibm research europe
Scholars:
13
Papers: 5
Citations: 0
researcher View more organizations