
Intel Reveals Neuromorphic Chip Design - engibeer
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428235/intel-reveals-neuromorphic-chip-design
======
chalst
If I understand this correctly, the technology replaces transistor-like
technologies, where the state of one input determines if a pathway conducts or
blocks, with something called memristors/spin-valves, where the input directs
current rather than ever blocking it.

I recall a talk at MIT back in the 90s where the speaker emphasised that heat
generated in semiconductors is generated by the frequency with which heat is
generated and then sunk, and that it would be possible to design much lower
energy, lower heat electronics if ideas from linear logic were applied to gate
construction, minimising the need for generate-sink. The paper's technology
seems to support this thesis.

For more about linear logic, see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_logic>
\- I'm afraid I don't have any references to applications of linear logic to
low-power device design.

~~~
jacobolus
Something like that. The 2008 symposium about memristors talked a bit about
“material implication” as a basis for more efficient logic systems.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFdDPzcZwbs>

The HP guys published some papers about it too, but they might be all
paywalled?

~~~
mbenjaminsmith
I don't understand why Leon Chua keeps popping up first when memristors are
discussed. Williams at HP is the person that made it a reality. Chua
postulated the existence of the memristor but as far as I know made no
progress on a working example.

That's a bit like giving da Vinci credit for the invention of the helicopter.

The Williams talk on youtube is really good. He discusses the element itself,
its use in memory (as vast amounts of on-CPU memory) as well as the
possibility of new CPU architectures based on it:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKGhvKyjgLY>

~~~
pohl
A helicopter is an invention but not really a discovery. The memristor is as
much a discovery as it is an invention.

~~~
nivertech
So, you claim that unlike helicopters, memristors are part of the nature?

~~~
JanezStupar
Indeed they are.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor>

It has been known for decades that laws of nature imply a fourth fundamental
electronic element (besides resistor, capacitor and inductor).

>>> The Memristor is believed to be the missing 4th circuit element. Memristor
is basically a charge-dependent resistor. The reason that the memristor is
radically different from the other fundamental circuit elements is that,
unlike them, it carries a memory of its past. When you turn off the voltage to
the circuit, the memristor still remembers how much was applied before and for
how long. That's an effect that can't be duplicated by any circuit combination
of resistors, capacitors, and inductors, which is why the memristor qualifies
as a fundamental circuit element. Memristors can be combined into devices
called crossbar latches, which could replace transistors in future computers,
taking up a much smaller area. They can also be fashioned into non-volatile
solid-state memory, which would allow data density of about 100GB/1sqcm. This
can be implemented for designing circuits with lesser components, lesser
expenses and lesser power consumption. Also coupling the crossbar latch with
FPGA (Field Processing Gate Array) technology, we can potentially make
processors so dynamic that they would never get obsolete. Giving a practical
solution to reduce the millions of tonnes of computer waste generated each
year...[1]

[1]: <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1742116>

~~~
dhx
Blaise Mouttet has written numerous papers and online comments which challenge
the claims put forward by memristor proponents[1][2]. Debate surrounds whether
the device created by HP is a memristor or simply a varistor[3][etc]. The
heated debate has been widely publicised in the scientific community[4][etc]
and is still ongoing. According to [3], Blaise has an interest in preventing a
patent land-grab over these technologies on the basis that the patent claims
may use unjustified science.

I also note that the 2008 symposium talk by Leon Chua made mention of Memory
Capacitors and Memory Inductors[5]. Stanley Williams started the next talk by
thanking Leon for the challenge posted to systems implementers to find and use
memory capacitors and memory inductors. If the missing circuit component is
the memory resistor (confused with the varistor?), where do memory capacitors
and memory inductors fit in?

[1] <http://vixra.org/author/blaise_mouttet>

[2]
[http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/all:+AND+Blaise+Mouttet/0/1/0/al...](http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/all:+AND+Blaise+Mouttet/0/1/0/all/0/1)

[3] [http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328535.200-online-
sp...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328535.200-online-spat-over-
who-joins-memristor-club.html)

[4] [http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-
blogs/other/4236273/Memri...](http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-
blogs/other/4236273/Memristor-brouhaha-redux)

[5] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFdDPzcZwbs>

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Daniel_Newby
"One reason the brain is so power efficient is that neural spikes charge only
a small fraction of a neuron as they travel. By contrast, conventional chips
keep each and every transmission line at a certain voltage all the time."

On thr contrary, the brain maintains a constant voltage on neurons, and spends
a lot of power to maintain that voltage in the face of leakage current. It is
just a much lower voltage. (50 mV rather than 1000 mV.)

------
hexagonal
TRN article, flagged.

~~~
pinko
Huh? Why? Did I miss something? Have TRN astroturfnauts been spamming HN or
something?

~~~
hexagonal
Like Singularityhub or phys.org or sciencedaily, TRN's SOP is to credulously
repeat the claims of dubious papers, and give them massively misleading
titles.

Bullshit TRN articles:

    
    
      http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4057225
      http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4047622
      http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4021790
      http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4007047
      http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3993640

------
sausagefeet
Sheesh, last thing I want is my computer to become horrible at math. Although
maybe it'll be better at floating point...

~~~
roguecoder
The most promising approaches I've seen combine analog pattern-matching-based
compression of calculation with traditional digital computation. We see this
right now, where human+computer regularly outperforms either alone: the goal
is to move both types of reasoning into hardware.

