Ultra power saving chip "TrueNorth" simulating IBM's "brain" steadily evolved, reaching the brain level of mice

IBM traces the neural network of the mechanism of the human "brain", a processor with a completely different mechanism from the conventional computer "TrueNorthIt is under development. This IBM's innovative computer chip's ultra-high-efficiency capabilities make it ideal for smartphones andIoTIf it is installed in a terminal, the world of mobile computing seems to change completely.

IBM Research: Brain-inspired Chip
http://www.research.ibm.com/articles/brain-chip.shtml

IBM's 'Rodent Brain' Chip Could Make Our Phones Hyper-Smart | WIRED
http://www.wired.com/2015/08/ibms-rodent-brain-chip-make-phones-hyper-smart/

IBM has built a digital rat brain that could power tomorrow's smartphones - Quartz
http://qz.com/481164/ibm-has-built-a-digital-rat-brain-that-could-power-tomorrows-smartphones/

The current computerNeumann typeIt has a basic architecture called a basic architecture that requires data movement between the arithmetic unit and the memory, and this data movement is a performance bottleneck. To solve this von Neumann bottleneck, IBMNeuronWhenSynapseFocusing on the "brain" of a human having a signal transmission circuit called "brain". To trace the mechanism that can be computed far more energy-saving than the von Neumann type computer, a completely new computer chip "brain imitation type"SyNAPSE (synapse)"And announced it in August 2014.

This is a development board "NS1e" equipped with SyNAPSE chip


In the following movie released in 2012, we will explain the technical idea of ​​SyNAPSE.

Cognitive Computing: The SyNAPSE Project - YouTube


After that, we released the brain-type computer concept in 2014 as follows.

IBM succeeded in developing a processor with the same structure as the human brain - GIGAZINE


The brain-type chip announced in 2014 is named "TrueNorth" and includes the performance of 1,000,000 equivalent "neurons" programmable within one chip and "synapse" equivalent to 256 million. At the beginning of 2011, Neurosynaptics, which was a single core, loaded 4096 cores in one chip, reaching a scale comparable to "brains of insects".


By concatenating 16 of this TrueNorth it will reach "frog's brain" equivalent.


And about 1 year after TrueNorth announcement August 17, 2015, IBM released the latest development situation. It is reported that by linking NS1e it succeeded in evolving to about "Mouse brain" with about 48 million neurons, about 12.3 billion synapses.


By using TrueNorth, it is expected that processing such as image recognition, language translation, deep learning, etc. can be executed with high speed and super power saving, for example. Currently developed TrueNorth, which includes 5.4 billion transistors, operates at 70 mW, which means that it has far better power saving performance than the Intel CPU, as well as the ARM chip. Whether dramatic evolution will be brought to smartphones and IoT terminals by the newly structured chip "TrueNorth" which is a hint of the human brain, IBM's future development trend is important.