[Beowulf] [tt] One million ARM chips challenge Intel bumblebee

[Eugen Leitl]

http://www.techeye.net/chips/one-million-arm-chips-challenge-intel-bumblebee

One million ARM chips challenge Intel bumblebee

Manchester works toward human brain

07 Jul 2011 13:25 | by Matthew Finnegan in London | posted in Chips

One million ARM chips challenge Intel bumblebee -

A project to replicate the workings of the human brain has received a boost
with the delivery of one million ARM processors.

While Intel has its sights set on reaching bumble bee brain level in the near
future, it seems its rival is involved in one further.

Scientists at the University of Manchester will link together the ARM chips
as the system architecture of a massive computer, dubbed SpiNNaker, or
Spiking Neural Network architecture.

Despite the mass of chips it will only be possible to recreate models of up
to one percent of the human brain.

The chips have arrived and are past functionality testing.

A similar experiment was once attempted with a load of old Centrino chips
found at the back of our stationary cupboard, though so far we haven't even
managed to replicate the cranial workings of a particularly slow slug.

The work, headed up by Professor Steve Furber, has the potential to become a
revolutionary tool for neuroscientists and psychologists in understanding how
our brains work.

SpiNNaker will attempt to replicate the workings of the 100 billion neurons
and the 1,000 million connections that are used to create high connectivity
in cells.

SpiNNaker will model the electric signals that neurons emit, with each
impulse modelled as a ‘packet’ of data, similar to the way that information
is transferred over the internet.

The packet is sent to other neurons, represented by small equations solved in
real time by ARM processors.

The chips, designed in Machester and built in Taiwan, each contain 18 ARM
processors.

The bespoke 18 core chips are able to provide the computing power of a
personal computer in a fraction of the space, using just one watt of power.

Now that the chips have arrived it will be possible to get cracking on
building model.

“The project revolves around getting the chips made, which has taken the past
five years to get right,” Professor Steve Furber told TechEye.

“We will know be increasing the scale of the project over the next 18 months
before it reaches its final form, with one million processors used. We
already have the system working on a smaller scale, and we are able to look
at fifty to sixty thousand neurons currently.”

As well as offering possibilities as a scientific research tool, Furber hopes
that the system will help pave the way for computational advancements too.

“It will help to analyse the intermediate levels of the brain, which are very
difficult to focus on otherwise,” he says.

“Another area which this help is in building more reliable computing systems.
As chip manufacturers continue towards the end of Moore’s Law, transistors
will become increasingly unreliable. And computer systems are very
susceptible to malfunctioning transistors.”

Furber says biology works differently. “Biology, on the other hand, reacts to
the malfunctioning of neurons very well, with it happening regularly with all
brains, so this could help future chips become more reliable.”

Of course, we also wanted to know how this all compares with Intel’s famous
bumblebee claims.

Unfortunately, professor Furber couldn't specifically help us with
information about bumblebee brain processing.

He was, however, able to reel off some details about the honeybee.

“The honeybee brain has around 850,000 neurons so we will be able to reach
that level of processing in the next few months. Of course, we don’t have a
honeybee brain model to run, but we will have the computing power.”

Over to you, Intel.

Read more:
http://www.techeye.net/chips/one-million-arm-chips-challenge-intel-bumblebee#ixzz1RQe7GYoL

_______________________________________________
tt mailing list
tt at postbiota.org
http://postbiota.org/mailman/listinfo/tt