Brains and Machines ARM Inventor Steve Furber on SpiNNaker 1, 2 and Beyond
Nov 17, 2023
Steve Furber, Emeritus Professor at the University of Manchester and co-designer of the ARM architecture, shares his groundbreaking work in neuromorphic engineering. He discusses the evolution of associative memories and the design innovations behind the SpiNNaker platform, emphasizing brain-inspired computing's potential. Furber also explores challenges in timing and communication within neuromorphic systems and hints at the advancements coming with SpiNNaker 2, paving the way for improved AI applications and robotic navigation.
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Spinnaker's Biological Real-Time Achievement
- Spinnaker was the first machine to achieve biological real time on a cortical microcircuit model.
- This was a significant milestone, even though other systems later achieved this.
Timing in Neuromorphic Computing
- Timing is crucial in neuromorphic computing, with different approaches having different speeds.
- Spinnaker aims for biological real time, while BrainScales operates much faster.
Spinnaker 2 Improvements
- Spinnaker 1's limitations led to improvements in Spinnaker 2, such as hardware accelerators.
- Spinnaker 2 includes accelerators for exponential computation, logarithms, random numbers, and matrix operations.