Intel neuromorphic chip design

The brain has a number of enviable characteristics, including high performance with relatively low power consumption. The power consumption of the brain varies between 13-20 W, depending on the mode of operation. The developers of computer chips are trying to borrow at least some of the design solutions of the biological neural network in the design of silicon chips.

The so-called neuromorphic chips are an attempt to create a computing system that is similar in principle to a neural network. Like neurons, the elements of a neuromorphic microcircuit periodically “wake up” and send pulses, rather than being under constant voltage. In this case, the memory is distributed in the links between the elements of the chip.

Experts from the laboratory of Intel Circuit Research in Hillsboro published a work describing a neuromorphic chip, whose design is based on two technologies: lateral spin valves and memristors. Cross gates are tiny magnets that react to the spin of a passing electron. Memristors are, quite simply, memory resistors. According to the developers of such an architecture, it reduces the power consumption of microcircuits by 15-300 times compared to CMOS microcircuits of the same size.
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In addition, neuromorphic chips in their design are more suitable for the tasks of the same type with which the brain can best cope: processing analog information, cognitive calculations, associative memory, etc.

For details, see Proposal For Neuromorphic Hardware Using Spin Devices. Mrigank Sharad, Charles Augustine, Georgios Panagopoulos, Kaushik Roy ; arXiv: 1206.3227v1 .