"CBM (CAM-BRAIN MACHINE)" A Hardware Tool which Evolves a Neural Net Module in a Fraction of a Second and Runs a Million Neuron Artificial Brain in Real Time

This paper describes a hardware architecture capable of evolving thousands of neural network modules in a matter of minutes and running a simulation of a million neuron modular artificial brain in real time. This new hardware system (called a "CBM", i.e. a CAM-Brain Machine) is an essential component in ATR's ongoing "CAMBrain Project", which aims to build/grow/evolve an artificial brain consisting of a billion neurons by the year 2001. The CBM evolves modules containing some 4000 3D cellular automata (CA) cells with about 100 neurons each, using Xilinx's XC6264 FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) chips. This hardware implementation updates two FPGA-based neural modules of 4096 cells each, in parallel, at a 12.8 MHz clock rate, or 105 BILLION CELLS A SECOND. In 1998, this incredible speed will enable the creation of 10,000 evolved modules, which can be assembled into an artificial brain and then run in real time, i.e. the CBM can be used to update the whole CA space which contains all these modules with a total of one million neurons at 25 updates a second (with 100 cycles per module), which is sufficient to directly control robot devices in real time. The CBM is already contracted to be built by the end of 1997. The authors believe that a CBM will make brain building practical.