Sigmoid generators for neural computing using piecewise approximations

A piecewise second order approximation scheme is proposed for computing the sigmoid function. The scheme provides high performance with low implementation cost; thus, it is suitable for hardwired cost effective neural emulators. It is shown that an implementation of the sigmoid generator outperforms, in both precision and speed, existing schemes using a bit serial pipelined implementation. The proposed generator requires one multiplication, no look-up table and no addition. It has been estimated that the sigmoid output is generated with a maximum computation delay of 21 bit serial machine cycles representing a speedup of 1.57 to 2.23 over other proposals.