On the basis of the fact that the neuron activation function is sector bounded, this paper transforms the researched original delayed neural network into a linear uncertain system. Combined with delay partitioning technique, by using the convex combination between decomposed time delay and positive matrix, this paper constructs a novel Lyapunov function to derive new less conservative stability criteria. The benefit of the method used in this paper is that it can utilize more information on slope of the activations and time delays. To illustrate the effectiveness of the new established stable criteria, one numerical example and an application example are proposed to compare with some recent results.