Non von Neumann Computer Chip Mimics Biological Brain

IBM has introduced a silicon chip which mimics a biological brain. Although it contains only 4096 synaptic cores, it emulates a brain containing one million programmable “neurons,” 256 million programmable “synapses,” and 46 billion “synaptic operations” per second per watt — simulating the function of neurons and synapses in the brain.* Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence reports: This radical new cognitive chip architecture is also a departure from the classical von Neumann architecture — the basis of almost every computer today — which inherently creates a bottleneck limiting performance of the system. Instead, the new "TrueNorth" chip architecture features an digital on-chip, two-dimensional mesh network of 4096 digital, distributed neurosynaptic cores. Each core module integrates memory, computation, and communication, and operates in an event-driven, parallel, and fault-tolerant fashion. IBM says it is planning to integrate its neurosynaptic processing into mobile devices to overcome limitations constrained by power, volume and speed. Eventually, by 2030, chips which exceed the capacity of a human brain are expected to power the coming singularity described by Ray Kurzweil in his book The Singularity Is Near .

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