A Winner-Take-All circuit with proportional output

G. Oddone, G. Uneddu, S. Rovetta, and R. Zunino

DIBE -- University of Genova, Via all'Opera Pia 11a
16145 Genova (Italy)



WCNN96, Proceedings of the 1996 World Congress on Neural Networks,
September 1996. 



ABSTRACT

A linear--output WTA circuit is presented. The module is oriented to
real-world applications, therefore it features relatively large
input/output signal amplitudes, current mode input, and a large fan--in.
The main property of the circuit is that it realizes a linear transfer
of the winning input value to its output with a small error, while
retaining the simple scheme found in the standard WTA circuits.
A standard WTA, indicating the winning input with a 1--of--n bit coding,
can be obtained from the proposed circuit with few additional components.
These components are not critical, since they operate in digital mode.