A real-time spike-domain sensory information processing system [image processing applications]

We present an architecture for processing spike-based sensory information in real-time. The system is based on a re-configurable silicon array of general-purpose integrate-and-fire neurons (as opposed to application-specific circuits), which can emulate arbitrary cortical networks. A combined retinal/cortical network has been designed and tested with a neuromorphic silicon retina. Neural activity is communicated between chips at rates of up to 1,000,000 spikes/sec with a bit-parallel address-event representation protocol. This work represents the first step in constructing an autonomous, continuous-time, biologically-plausible hierarchical model of visual information processing using large-scale arrays of identical silicon neurons.