THE ERA OF NEUROSYNAPTICS: NEUROMORPHIC CHIPS AND ARCHITECTURE

European Scientific Journal, Jun 2015

Since its invention the modern day computer has shown a significant improvement in its performance and storage capacity.However, most of the current processor cores remain sequential in nature which limit the speed of computation. IBM has been consistently working over this and with the launching of neurosynaptic chips, it has opened a new gateway of thought process. This paper aims at reviewing the various stages and researches that have been instrumental in the overall development of neuromorphic architecture which aims at developing flexible brain like structure capable of performing wide range of real time computations while keeping ultra-low power consumption and size factor in mind. Inspired by the human brain, which is capable of performing complex tasks rapidly and accurately without being programmed and utilizing very less energy, TrueNorth chips tends to mimic the human brain so as to perform complex computations at a faster pace. This has inspired a new field of study aimed at development of the cognitive computing systems that could potentially emulate the brain's computing efficiency, size and power.The paper also aims to highlight the inadvertent challenges of neuromorphic architecture as posed by the prevailing technologies which are a major field of research in near future.

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THE ERA OF NEUROSYNAPTICS: NEUROMORPHIC CHIPS AND ARCHITECTURE

European Scientific Journal June 2015 /SPECIAL/ edition ISSN: 1857 - 7881 (Print) e THE ERA OF NEUROSYNAPTICS: NEUROMORPHIC CHIPS AND ARCHITECTURE Siddhartha Agarwal Divyanshi Rastogi Aayush Singhal 0 0 Department of Electronics and Communication JSS Academy of Technical Education NOIDA , India Since its invention the modern day computer has shown a significant improvement in its performance and storage capacity.However, most of the current processor cores remain sequential in nature which limit the speed of computation. IBM has been consistently working over this and with the launching of neurosynaptic chips, it has opened a new gateway of thought process. This paper aims at reviewing the various stages and researches that have been instrumental in the overall development of neuromorphic architecture which aims at developing flexible brain like structure capable of performing wide range of real time computations while keeping ultra-low power consumption and size factor in mind. Inspired by the human brain, which is capable of performing complex tasks rapidly and accurately without being programmed and utilizing very less energy, TrueNorth chips tends to mimic the human brain so as to perform complex computations at a faster pace. This has inspired a new field of study aimed at development of the cognitive computing systems that could potentially emulate the brain's computing efficiency, size and power.The paper also aims to highlight the inadvertent challenges of neuromorphic architecture as posed by the prevailing technologies which are a major field of research in near future. - Introduction Human Brain- synonymous with the central processing unit of a computer , consists of a wide network of neurons and attached dendrons which on contraction and expansion help in transferring of information from one part of body to another. This very transfer is done by Synapse, which means ‘conjunction’. Thus, at a synaptic site, signal passing neuron comes in close contact with the target which is rich in extensive array of molecular machinery. In actual, the biological neural systems perform wide range of real time computations and tasks such as pattern recognition, sensory reconstruction carried out by these low power, dense neural circuits which within metabolic constraints are more efficient that traditional computers. The basic computational unit of this system is the neurons that communicate with each other through the generation and modulation of spike trains where it may be an all-or-nothing pulse. The human brain consists of a staggering number of over 100 billion neurons and over 1 trillion synapses. The implementation of such a complex system is feasible through use of supercomputers but power and space has always been a constraint, preventing its usefulness in mobile systems for real time applications. Thus, mimicking human brain so as to take a big leap towards bionic systems has been a major concern over decades. With the aim of producing intelligent memory cells, materials such as chalcogenides need to be crafted which can sustain non-Boolean Algebra,thereby offering multi stable states. The memories so created are called ‘cognitive memory’ and forms the very basis of OCD’s. Ovonic computational devices (OCD) have analogous functions to neurons in brain and their synapses and they tend to offer same plasticity as organic molecules associated at neurosynaptic sites. Their very composition comprises of nano-dimensional amorphous structures like chalcogenide glasses offering high optical quality, which can be used to mimic brain like computations. But in order to improve the switching times and reduce power consumption per synaptic event, the neuromorphic architecture came into being, which was capable of running spiking neural networks in compact and low power hardware. This neuromorphic architecture used analog circuits for biological components and digital asynchronous circuits for the communication of spike events. Inspite of its compactness and reduced power consumption , its sensitivity to process variations, ambient temperature and noisy environment posed a challenge in configuring circuit that could operate under a wide array of external parameters. This limited correspondence between analog implementations and neural algorithm was an obstacle to algorithm development and deployment . Even the lack of addition of high density capacitors and sub-threshold currents in analog implementation made it more complex and unreliable. Thus, implementation of neuromorphic architecture using discrete time, low power event driven circuits provided a path to both area and power efficient architecture, capable of one-to-one correspondence with the simulator. This breakthrough came as a part of IBM’s launch of neurosynaptic chips, which opened gateways to a new thought process. The world of synapses The innovation heralded with development of neurosynaptic core which had 256 integrate-and-fire neurons (...truncated)


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Siddhartha Agarwal, Divyanshi Rastogi, Aayush Singhal. THE ERA OF NEUROSYNAPTICS: NEUROMORPHIC CHIPS AND ARCHITECTURE, European Scientific Journal, 2015,