International Business Machines Corporation

Urs Egger

Abu Sebastian

Ghazi Sarwat Syed

Configurable sensor units and sensor apparatus are provided. A configurable sensor unit comprises a sensor device for generating an electrical signal, dependent on a stimulus sensed by the device, in a circuit, and a programmable non-volatile memory element operable in the circuit as a load resistor for the sensor device, whereby resistance of the load resistor depends on a programmed state of the memory element. The sensor unit has an output for providing an output signal dependent on the aforementioned electrical signal and programmed state. Sensor apparatus may comprise a plurality of these configurable sensor units. Such sensor apparatus may be configured to perform in-sensor compute operations for neural network architectures. Further sensor apparatus comprises a configurable sensor unit and a controller for programming the memory element of the sensor unit to a programmed state dependent on an operating requirement for the sensor unit.

Growing community of inventors

Zurich, Switzerland

Urs Egger