Abstract
Brain-inspired computing, which is inspired by the information processing procedure and the biophysiological structure of the brain, is believed to have the potential to drive the next wave of computer engineering and provide a promising way for the next generation of artificial intelligence. The basic software for brain-inspired computing is the core link to realize the research goals of brain-inspired computing and build the ecological environment of brain-inspired computing applications. This paper reviews the status of the three major kinds of basic software for brain-inspired computing. Namely, the toolchains for neuromorphic chips, the software simulation frameworks, and the frameworks that integrate spiking neural networks (SNNs) and deep neural networks (DNNs). Afterward, we point out that a "general-purpose" hierarchical and HW/SW decoupled basic software framework would be beneficial to both the (computational) neuroscience and brain-inspired intelligence fields. And the notion “general-purpose” refers to the decoupling of software and hardware and supports the integration of computer science and neuroscience related research.
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Acknowledgements
Thank Beijing Innovation Center for Future Chips for providing the information about the neuromorphic chips.
Funding
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62072266). Supported by the Open Project Program of the State Key Laboratory of Mathematical Engineering and Advanced Computing (Grant no. 2020A07). Supported by Tsinghua University-China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. Joint Institute (Grant no. 62050340). Supported by Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology (BNR2022RC01003).
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Qu, P., Yang, L., Zheng, W. et al. A review of basic software for brain-inspired computing. CCF Trans. HPC 4, 34–42 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42514-022-00092-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42514-022-00092-1