Samsung has created a “digital eye” based on the IBM Truenorth chip

IBM's neuromorphic chip, called Truenorth, became the basis of one of the Samsung projects. This is a project to create a digital eye, where each pixel on the image sensor is processed separately. The development of Samsung called Dynamic Vision Sensor. The system is able to detect the smallest changes in what it sees and respond to these changes with very high speed.

The principle of operation of the entire system is different from the principle of operation of ordinary cameras, which made it possible to increase the processing speed of the video stream to 2 thousand frames per second. In the most advanced cameras, this indicator does not exceed 120 fps (with the exception of a number of specialized cameras). The new system can be used in many areas, including gesture recognition. Samsung's “digital eye” can pick up small movements over considerable distances (5-6 meters or more).
')


The power consumption of the “digital eye” is minimal and is about 300 mW. "This is a hundred times less than the average performance of a laptop processor and ten times less than the power consumption of a processor installed in conventional smartphones," said Eric Ryu, vice president of Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology.

When demonstrating their project, Samsung representatives showed how the Dynamic Vision Sensor can be used to control a number of TV functions. The control system recognized gestures, including clenched fists and finger rotation from a distance of 6 meters.

IBM Truenorth is used as a central element in other projects.

For example, Air Force Research Laboratory uses a chip to identify unusual situations when analyzing images from surveillance cameras. The chip can also work in systems designed to determine cyber attacks, to translate a conversation or printed text into structured data. Also, Air Force Research Laboratory uses a chip in autonomous drones when flying long distances, when the system is not controlled by a human. “At the same time, the drone understands where it is, what to do and where to fly,” says King Wu, head of the Air Force Research Laboratory, “We need powerful, energy-efficient processors. And IBM Truenorth is exactly what is required. ”

The Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has created a supercomputer based on the TrueNorth chip. The principle of operation of this system is similar to the principle of the human brain (to the extent that scientists understand the basics of the functioning of this body). In this case, we are talking about an imitation of a network of 16 million neurons with 4 billion synapses. This computer is one of the most powerful among all the other "brain-like" PCs created by man. Computer developers hope that after some time such systems will be able to perform extremely complex calculations at a tremendous speed, consuming minimal energy.

A team of researchers from the University of Melbourne joined forces with IBM to create a specific “neural network + chip” system that predicts the onset of an epileptic seizure. Such a chip, according to the authors, carries out permanent monitoring of the activity of the human brain (electrical signals are being tracked). The implant sends the collected information wirelessly to a specialized device with a neural network architecture.

TrueNorth chip is made on 28 nm process technology. It contains 5.4 billion transistors and is a neuromorphic system with the following characteristics:
• one million emulated "neurons"
• 256 million emulated connections between neurons - “synapses”
• about 400 megabytes of SRAM memory (approximately 50 megabytes)



The processor includes 4096 blocks located in a two-dimensional array of 64 * 64. Each block includes a scheduler, a token control module, a memory, a communication module with adjacent blocks, and a logical system of “neurons”. Asynchronous chip making technology. According to experts, the performance of systems based on the chip is 46 billion "synaptic operations per second per watt."