Memristive Neurons and Synapses for Neuromorphic Edge Computing

Descripción del proyecto

Sistemas avanzados inspirados en el encéfalo para la computación en el borde

El auge de la inteligencia artificial ha intensificado la necesidad de contar con sistemas que puedan funcionar con eficacia en el borde, cerca de donde se generan los datos. Estos sistemas deben cumplir requisitos estrictos, como un bajo consumo de energía, una escasa ocupación de superficie, tiempos de respuesta rápidos y capacidad de aprendizaje al instante. El equipo del proyecto MEMRINESS, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, generará paradigmas informáticos nuevos para desplegar sistemas inteligentes en el borde. Los investigadores estudiarán arquitecturas inspiradas en el encéfalo, en concreto redes neuronales con picos que imitan el modo en que las neuronas y sinapsis biológicas procesan y almacenan la información. El equipo aprovechará la tecnología memristiva para conservar la memoria sin energía (almacenamiento no volátil), al tiempo que se reproducen los comportamientos dinámicos y dependientes del tiempo de los sistemas biológicos. Esto permitirá crear neuronas y sinapsis compactas, de bajo consumo energético y capaces de adaptarse a múltiples escalas temporales.

Objetivo

In recent years, Artificial Intelligence has shifted towards collaborative learning paradigms, where multiple systems acquire and elaborate data in real-time and share their experience to improve their performance. MEMRINESS will generate new fundamental computing primitives that will overcome the current challenges for the deployment of intelligent systems on the edge.
The requirements of a system operating on the edge are very tight: power efficiency, low area occupation, fast response times, and online learning. Brain-inspired architectures such as Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) use artificial neurons and synapses that perform low-latency computation and internal-state storage simultaneously with very low power consumption, but at present they mainly rely on standard technologies, which make SNNs unfit to meet the above-mentioned constraints. Indeed, the dream of compact and efficient neurons and synapses, able to work at different time scales to match real-time constants and to retain memory of their state even in the absence of a power supply, cannot be realised without flanking standard technologies with emerging ones.
In this respect, memristive technology has shown promising results, due to its ability to support non-volatile storage of the SNN parameters. Yet so far, research has prioritised the non-volatile properties of the devices rather than focusing additionally on the reproduction of multi-temporal synaptic and neural dynamics. To solve this problem, I will develop neurons and synapses that exploit the intrinsic physical characteristics and dynamics of volatile and non-volatile memristive devices to enable the design of compact, power efficient SNNs with multi timescale dynamics. I will use a holistic approach and co-develop every aspect, from the devices to the circuits, to the learning algorithms. I will use the results to design a SNN and demonstrate its collaborative and online learning capabilities in three scenarios of increasing complexity.