title: Artificial brains. A million spiking-neuron integrated circuit with a scalable communication network and interface.
abstract: Inspired by the brain's structure, we have developed an efficient, scalable, and flexible non-von Neumann architecture that leverages contemporary silicon technology. To demonstrate, we built a 5.4-billion-transistor chip with 4096 neurosynaptic cores interconnected via an intrachip network that integrates 1 million programmable spiking neurons and 256 million configurable synapses. Chips can be tiled in two dimensions via an interchip communication interface, seamlessly scaling the architecture to a cortexlike sheet of arbitrary size. The architecture is well suited to many applications that use complex neural networks in real time, for example, multiobject detection and classification. With 400-pixel-by-240-pixel video input at 30 frames per second, the chip consumes 63 milliwatts.
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Almaden, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA.
authors.forename: Paul A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Merolla
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Almaden, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA.
authors.forename: John V
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Arthur
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Almaden, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA.
authors.forename: Rodrigo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Alvarez-Icaza
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Almaden, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA.
authors.forename: Andrew S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Cassidy
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Austin, 11501 Burnet Road, Austin, TX 78758, USA.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sawada
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Almaden, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA.
authors.forename: Filipp
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Akopyan
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Almaden, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA.
authors.forename: Bryan L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.affiliation: Cornell University, 358 Upson Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853 USA.
authors.forename: Nabil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Imam
authors.affiliation: IBM Engineering and Technology Services, San Jose Design Center, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA.
authors.forename: Chen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Tokyo, Nippon Building Fund Toyosu Canal Front Building, 5-6-52 Toyosu, Koto-ku Tokyo 135-8511, Japan.
authors.forename: Yutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nakamura
authors.affiliation: IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, 101 Kitchawan Road, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA.
authors.forename: Bernard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Brezzo
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Austin, 11501 Burnet Road, Austin, TX 78758, USA.
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Vo
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Almaden, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA.
authors.forename: Steven K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Esser
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Almaden, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA.
authors.forename: Rathinakumar
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Appuswamy
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Almaden, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA.
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Taba
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Almaden, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA.
authors.forename: Arnon
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Amir
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Almaden, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA.
authors.forename: Myron D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Flickner
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Almaden, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA.
authors.forename: William P
authors.initials: WP
authors.lastname: Risk
authors.affiliation: Cornell Tech, 111 Eighth Avenue No. 302, New York, NY 10011, USA.
authors.forename: Rajit
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Manohar
authors.affiliation: IBM Research-Almaden, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA. dmodha@us.ibm.com.
authors.forename: Dharmendra S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Modha
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain; D062207:Brain-Computer Interfaces; D003198:Computer Simulation; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D009474:Neurons; D012984:Software; D013569:Synapses