NeRTCAM: CAM-Based CMOS Implementation of Reference Frames for Neuromorphic Processors

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Nair, Harideep, Leyman, William, Sampath, Agastya, Jacobson, Quinn, Shen, John Paul
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866913356962594816
author Nair, Harideep
Leyman, William
Sampath, Agastya
Jacobson, Quinn
Shen, John Paul
author_facet Nair, Harideep
Leyman, William
Sampath, Agastya
Jacobson, Quinn
Shen, John Paul
contents Neuromorphic architectures mimicking biological neural networks have been proposed as a much more efficient alternative to conventional von Neumann architectures for the exploding compute demands of AI workloads. Recent neuroscience theory on intelligence suggests that Cortical Columns (CCs) are the fundamental compute units in the neocortex and intelligence arises from CC's ability to store, predict and infer information via structured Reference Frames (RFs). Based on this theory, recent works have demonstrated brain-like visual object recognition using software simulation. Our work is the first attempt towards direct CMOS implementation of Reference Frames for building CC-based neuromorphic processors. We propose NeRTCAM (Neuromorphic Reverse Ternary Content Addressable Memory), a CAM-based building block that supports the key operations (store, predict, infer) required to perform inference using RFs. NeRTCAM architecture is presented in detail including its key components. All designs are implemented in SystemVerilog and synthesized in 7nm CMOS, and hardware complexity scaling is evaluated for varying storage sizes. NeRTCAM system for biologically motivated MNIST inference with a storage size of 1024 entries incurs just 0.15 mm^2 area, 400 mW power and 9.18 us critical path latency, demonstrating the feasibility of direct CMOS implementation of CAM-based Reference Frames.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_11844
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle NeRTCAM: CAM-Based CMOS Implementation of Reference Frames for Neuromorphic Processors
Nair, Harideep
Leyman, William
Sampath, Agastya
Jacobson, Quinn
Shen, John Paul
Hardware Architecture
Emerging Technologies
Neuromorphic architectures mimicking biological neural networks have been proposed as a much more efficient alternative to conventional von Neumann architectures for the exploding compute demands of AI workloads. Recent neuroscience theory on intelligence suggests that Cortical Columns (CCs) are the fundamental compute units in the neocortex and intelligence arises from CC's ability to store, predict and infer information via structured Reference Frames (RFs). Based on this theory, recent works have demonstrated brain-like visual object recognition using software simulation. Our work is the first attempt towards direct CMOS implementation of Reference Frames for building CC-based neuromorphic processors. We propose NeRTCAM (Neuromorphic Reverse Ternary Content Addressable Memory), a CAM-based building block that supports the key operations (store, predict, infer) required to perform inference using RFs. NeRTCAM architecture is presented in detail including its key components. All designs are implemented in SystemVerilog and synthesized in 7nm CMOS, and hardware complexity scaling is evaluated for varying storage sizes. NeRTCAM system for biologically motivated MNIST inference with a storage size of 1024 entries incurs just 0.15 mm^2 area, 400 mW power and 9.18 us critical path latency, demonstrating the feasibility of direct CMOS implementation of CAM-based Reference Frames.
title NeRTCAM: CAM-Based CMOS Implementation of Reference Frames for Neuromorphic Processors
topic Hardware Architecture
Emerging Technologies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.11844