Samsung's ambition is to develop chips, which mimic the functions of the human brain for self-learning tasks. This South Korean company wants to 'copy-paste' the human brain onto a silicon chip.
To explore this new possibility, the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) partnered with researchers from Harvard University to conduct a 'Neuromorphic electronics based on copying and pasting the brain' study published in a scientific paper in Nature Electronics.
Quoted from HPC Wire, the idea proposed in this new study is the possibility to copy the neural connection map of the human brain using a specially developed nanoelectrode array developed by Professor HongKun Park and Professor Donhee Ham.
"The vision we present is very ambitious while striving to achieve heroic goals. It will break the boundaries of machine intelligence, neuroscience and semiconductor technology," said Ham Don-hee, of the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and a lecturer at Harvard University.
The purpose of copy-pasting this map of the neural connections of the human brain is to study a high-density 3D network of solid-state memory cells, which can be either the standard NAND used in SSDs or more exotic memory such as resistive RAM.
Later each cell will be programmed so that its conductance represents the strength of a particular nerve connection. However, this is no small task, as the human brain is estimated to have 100 billion neurons with many more synaptic connections.
If imitated by humans, of course this is a rather slow and complicated process. But Samsung says memory technologies have progressed to the point where they can effectively help reverse engineer the human brain on memory chips.
Ultimately, this will allow researchers to more easily develop neuromorphic chips with the same characteristics as the brain, such as low-power operation, rapid adaptation to certain environments, and even cognition. It is not yet known how Samsung will achieve its ambition and when this dream will be achieved.