Neuromorphic Computing Group

Brain-Inspired Systems at UC Santa Cruz

Neuromorphic Computing Group

New Paper: “BPLC + NOSO: Backpropagation of errors based on latency code with neurons that only spike once at most” led by Ph.D. candidate Seong Min Jin published in Complex Intelligent Systems

BPLC + NOSO has been published, led by Seong Min Jin and Doo Seok Jeong (Jeong Lab), along with collaborators Dohun Kim and Dong Hyung Yoo.

Abstract: For mathematical completeness, we propose an error-backpropagation algorithm based on latency code (BPLC) with spiking neurons conforming to the spike–response model but allowed to spike once at most (NOSOs). BPLC is based on gradients derived without approximation unlike previous temporal code-based error-backpropagation algorithms. The latency code uses the spiking latency (period from the first input spike to spiking) as a measure of neuronal activity. To support the latency code, we introduce a minimum-latency pooling layer that passes the spike of the minimum latency only for a given patch. We also introduce a symmetric dual threshold for spiking (i) to avoid the dead neuron issue and (ii) to confine a potential distribution to the range between the symmetric thresholds. Given that the number of spikes (rather than timesteps) is the major cause of inference delay for digital neuromorphic hardware, NOSONets trained using BPLC likely reduce inference delay significantly. To identify the feasibility of BPLC + NOSO, we trained CNN-based NOSONets on Fashion-MNIST and CIFAR-10. The classification accuracy on CIFAR-10 exceeds the state-of-the-art result from an SNN of the same depth and width by approximately 2%. Additionally, the number of spikes for inference is significantly reduced (by approximately one order of magnitude), highlighting a significant reduction in inference delay.

Paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40747-023-00983-y

Code: https://github.com/dooseokjeong/BPLC-NOSO

New Paper: “Neuromorphic Deep Spiking Neural Networks for Seizure Detection” led by Ph.D. Candidate Yikai Yang Published in Neuromorphic Computing and Engineering

Abstract: The vast majority of studies that process and analyze neural signals are conducted on cloud computing resources, which is often necessary for the demanding requirements of Deep Neural Network (DNN) workloads. However, applications such as epileptic seizure detection stand to benefit from edge devices that can securely analyze sensitive medical data in real-time and personalised manner. In this work, we propose a novel neuromorphic computing approach to seizure detection using a surrogate gradient-based deep Spiking Neural Network (SNN), which consists of a novel Spiking ConvLSTM unit (SPCLU). We have trained, validated, and rigorously tested the proposed SNN model across three publicly accessible datasets, including Boston Children’s Hospital–MIT (CHB-MIT) dataset from the U.S., and the Freiburg (FB) and EPILEPSIAE intracranial EEG (iEEG) datasets from Germany. The average leave-one-out cross-validation AUC score for FB, CHB-MIT, and EPILEPSIAE datasets can reach 92.7%, 89.0%, and 81.1%, respectively, while the computational overhead and energy consumption are significantly reduced when compared to alternative state-of-the-art models, showing the potential for building an accurate hardware-friendly, low-power neuromorphic system. This is the first feasibility study using a deep Spiking Neural Network for seizure detection on several reliable public datasets.

Read more here.

 

New Preprint: “OpenSpike: An OpenRAM SNN Accelerator” led by Undergraduate Researcher Farhad Modaresi Accepted for ISCAS 2023 in Monterey, CA

Farhad Modaresi has led the design and tape-out of a fully open-sourced spiking neural network accelerator in the Skywater 130 process. The design is based on memory macros generated using OpenRAM.

Many of the advances in deep learning this past decade can be attributed to the open-source movement where researchers have been able to reproduce and iterate upon open code bases. With the advent of open PDKs (SkyWater), EDA toolchains, and memory compilers (OpenRAM by co-author Matthew Guthaus), we hope to port rapid acceleration in hardware development to the neuromorphic community. 

Check out the preprint here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.01015

GitHub repo with RTL you are welcome to steal: https://github.com/sfmth/OpenSpike

OpenSpike Schematic and Layout