The road to commercial success for neuromorphic technologies
Dylan R. Muir, Sadique Sheik
Abstract
Neuromorphic technologies adapt biological neural principles to synthesise high-efficiency computational devices, characterised by continuous real-time operation and sparse event-based communication. After several false starts, a confluence of advances now promises widespread commercial adoption. Gradient-based training of deep spiking neural networks is now an off-the-shelf technique for building general-purpose Neuromorphic applications, with open-source tools underwritten by theoretical results. Analog and mixed-signal Neuromorphic circuit designs are being replaced by digital equivalents in newer devices, simplifying application deployment while maintaining computational benefits. Designs for in-memory computing are also approaching commercial maturity. Solving two key problems—how to program general Neuromorphic applications; and how to deploy them at scale—clears the way to commercial success of Neuromorphic processors. Ultra-low-power Neuromorphic technology will find a home in battery-powered systems, local compute for internet-of-things devices, and consumer wearables. Inspiration from uptake of tensor processors and GPUs can help the field overcome remaining hurdles. Neuromorphic processors for commercial success require facing challenges in methods for programming neuromorphic applications and deployment at scale. Here, the authors discuss the pathways towards widespread consumer adoption of neuromorphic technology in relation to academia and industry.