Let’s Build Brains MICRO 2007 Panel Computing Beyond Von Neumann
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Transcript of Let’s Build Brains MICRO 2007 Panel Computing Beyond Von Neumann
Let’s Build BrainsMICRO 2007 Panel
Computing Beyond Von Neumann
Mikko H. LipastiAssociate Professor
Electrical and Computer EngineeringUniversity of Wisconsin – Madison
http://www.ece.wisc.edu/~pharm
Brains (1) Human brain Von Neumann machine
Face recognition: <500ms Neurons are slow:
Critical path is a handful of “gates” Fundamentally different computational model
Made of shoddy, unreliable parts“…neurons are noisy, unreliable devices, … the nervous system
averages over many cells to compensate for these shoddy components.”
-Christof Koch
We can build it. We have the technology.
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Brains (2) Human neocortex:
~20B neurons, ~200T synapses Physiologically homogenous Hypothesis: runs common algorithm
Apply architecture 101? Abstraction layers Hierarchy and replication
Scientific understanding incomplete Several plausible hypotheses Difficult to study brains in situ
Building leads to understanding [Anant’s keynote] Synthetic artifacts much easier to study
Let’s Build Brains!
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