Synchronous Digital Implementation of the AER Communication Scheme for Emulating Large-Scale Spiking Neural Networks Models

In this paper we shall present a fully synchronous digital implementation of the Address Event Representation (AER) communication scheme that has been used in the PERPLEXUS chip in order to permit the emulation of large-scale biologically inspired spiking neural networks models. By introducing specific commands in the AER protocol it is possible to distribute the AER bus among a large number of chips where the functionality of the spiking neurons is being emulated. A careful design of the AER encoder module using compact Content Addressable Memories (CAMs) allows for a feasible realization of large-scale models.