Neuromorphic Intermediate Representation: A Unified Instruction Set for Interoperable Brain-Inspired Computing

TL;DR

The paper introduces the Neuromorphic Intermediate Representation (NIR), a unified computational framework that enables interoperability and reproducibility across diverse neuromorphic hardware and software platforms, advancing brain-inspired computing.

Contribution

NIR provides a common reference frame for neuromorphic systems, supporting multiple platforms and models, and facilitating hardware-software co-evolution in brain-inspired computing.

Findings

Successfully reproduced three neural models across seven simulators and four hardware platforms.

Decouples hardware and software development, enhancing interoperability.

Supports a wide range of neuromorphic systems, promoting reproducibility.

Abstract

Spiking neural networks and neuromorphic hardware platforms that simulate neuronal dynamics are getting wide attention and are being applied to many relevant problems using Machine Learning. Despite a well-established mathematical foundation for neural dynamics, there exists numerous software and hardware solutions and stacks whose variability makes it difficult to reproduce findings. Here, we establish a common reference frame for computations in digital neuromorphic systems, titled Neuromorphic Intermediate Representation (NIR). NIR defines a set of computational and composable model primitives as hybrid systems combining continuous-time dynamics and discrete events. By abstracting away assumptions around discretization and hardware constraints, NIR faithfully captures the computational model, while bridging differences between the evaluated implementation and the underlying mathematical formalism. NIR supports an unprecedented number of neuromorphic systems, which we demonstrate by reproducing three spiking neural network models of different complexity across 7 neuromorphic simulators and 4 digital hardware platforms. NIR decouples the development of neuromorphic hardware and software, enabling interoperability between platforms and improving accessibility to multiple neuromorphic technologies. We believe that NIR is a key next step in brain-inspired hardware-software co-evolution, enabling research towards the implementation of energy efficient computational principles of nervous systems. NIR is available at neuroir.org