Comparing Loihi with a SpiNNaker 2 prototype on low-latency keyword spotting and adaptive robotic control

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

We implemented two neural network based benchmark tasks on a prototype chip of the second-generation SpiNNaker (SpiNNaker 2) neuromorphic system: keyword spotting and adaptive robotic control. Keyword spotting is commonly used in smart speakers to listen for wake words, and adaptive control is used in robotic applications to adapt to unknown dynamics in an online fashion. We highlight the benefit of a multiply-accumulate (MAC) array in the SpiNNaker 2 prototype which is ordinarily used in rate-based machine learning networks when employed in a neuromorphic, spiking context. In addition, the same benchmark tasks have been implemented on the Loihi neuromorphic chip, giving a side-by-side comparison regarding power consumption and computation time. While Loihi shows better efficiency when less complicated vector-matrix multiplication is involved, with the MAC array, the SpiNNaker 2 prototype shows better efficiency when high dimensional vector-matrix multiplication is involved.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number014002
Journal Neuromorphic computing and engineering
Volume1
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 1 Sept 2021
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-6286-5064/work/160048712

Keywords

Keywords

  • adaptive robotic control, keyword spotting, Loihi, MAC array, neuromorphic computing, SpiNNaker