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from the neuromorphic-computing-strikes-again dept.
A new way of creating a neural network using specially formulated memristors has been described by a team of researchers from Stony Brook University and the University of California Santa Barbara. The process has the potential to place an entire neural network on a single chip:
The system produced by the authors here involved only a 12-by-12 grid of memristors, so it's pretty limited in capacity. But Robert Legenstein, from Austria's Graz University of Technology, writes in an accompanying perspective that "If this design can be scaled up to large network sizes, it will affect the future of computing."
That's because there are still many challenges where a neural network can easily outperform traditional computing hardware—and do so at a fraction of the energy cost. Even on a 30 nm process, it would be possible to place 25 million cells in a square centimeter, with 10,000 synapses on each cell. And all that would dissipate about a Watt.
Training and operation of an integrated neuromorphic network based on metal-oxide memristors [abstract]
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Thursday May 07 2015, @07:17PM
Come back when there's any plausible evidence that this technology has the potential to scale in this way, and I'll be excited.
Until then, IMO it's yet another item on the growing pile of vaporware Techs That Could Change The World if only the massive engineering problems that render them unusable disappear somehow.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mr Big in the Pants on Thursday May 07 2015, @07:31PM
Well the first would be mass application in consumer devices. And not theoretical, actual. Considering the upfront cost of building a typical chip manufacturing process to produce such a chip, that would be your first hurdle to mass production.
Nevertheless it is still an interesting result and should not be shat upon from a great height just yet.
They are not a tech startup looking for investors (well, not yet...) and thus this is RESEARCH that needs to have the scientific method applied to it via peer review etc etc. I mean, would you prefer this website NOT report on such research?!
This is not vapourware. This is science!
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Thursday May 07 2015, @09:17PM
"affect the future of computing" is a long way from "change the world".
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Thursday May 07 2015, @11:12PM
or nearly the same thing