Communications of the ACM
Researchers Building a Computer Chip Based on the Human Brain
Credit: gansushequ.com
Boise State University researchers are developing a chip with a computing architecture resembling the human brain. "By mimicking the brain's billions of interconnections and pattern recognition capabilities, we may ultimately introduce a new paradigm in speed and power, and potentially enable systems that include the ability to learn, adapt, and respond to their environment," says principal investigator Elisa Barney Smith.
The key focus of the project is a memristor, or a resistor that can be programmed to a new resistance by the application of electrical pulses. The team's research expands upon recent work from researchers who have derived mathematical algorithms to explain the electrical interaction between brain synapses and neurons. "By employing these models in combination with a new device technology that exhibits similar electrical response to the neural synapses, we will design entirely new computing chips that mimic how the brain processes information," Barney Smith says. The chips will be able to consume power at an order of magnitude lower than current computing processors, despite the fact that they match existing chips in physical dimensions.
After the team builds an artificial neural network, it will seek to engage neurobiologists in parallel to what they are doing now.
From Boise State University
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