ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief review of methods and constraints for achieving through the current-voltage characteristics of field-effect transistors (FETs). Saturating FETs are not without their uses in implementing shunting networks. The implementation of this analog multiplication is by far the greatest concern in the design of an electronic realization of a shunting network. In addition to the range and methods for programming the interconnection weights, there are other restrictions on the application of shunting networks that are imposed by the use of FET-based integration technologies. In order to obtain some quantitative procedures for the design of shunting neural networks using integrated FET circuitry, it is first necessary to review the nonlinear device characteristics which allow FETs to implement the network state equations. The chapter focuses on the implementation of the multiplicative term using the current-voltage characteristics of both metal-oxide-semiconductor FETs and metal-semiconductor FETs.
