To Solve The "Memory Misery" Silicon Cognitive Memory Is Moving Toward Biological Architecture

Anne Menendez & Guy Paillet, Cognimem

Stevenson Hall 1300
12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

So far, mainstream computer architecture has been centered around fast processors accessing memory locations at high speed but only one at a time. Multicore processors do somewhat better but bang on the wall of single pipe access and/or task distribution and synchronization. Procedural computing has progressed far, especially thanks to storage and communication innovations. It is spectacular that most of computers today still use sixty-year old paradigms (think ENIAC) with the "fetch/decode/execute model". IBM, which was a partner in developing the ZISC, ancestor of the Cognitive Memory that we are introducing, has recently re-embraced the Cognitive Computing approach. In Cognitive computing the information is stored into each memory node as in procedural computing, but instead of being a "submissive memory" waiting being visited by the processor(s), the Cognitive Memory reacts to a query or stimulus which is disseminated to all memory nodes or neurons in parallel. While certain neurons of the biological systems are hardwired and procedural in nature at birth (such as breath, heartbeat, etc.) the neo-cortex is a very large parallel database which is built during our lifetime and whose neurons react to queries or "auto-queries" (chain reaction of thinking) and indeed external stimuli by the senses.