Physical Optics Corporation — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: A12-106

Description

To address the Armys need for a high-performance, low-power bio-inspired parallel processor, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to advance development of a new highly reconfigurable Memristor-based Brain-like Morphware Processing (BRAINWARE) technology for implementation in upcoming military cognitive processing system and communication platforms. Proven feasible via modeling and simulations in Phase I, BRAINWARE is based on solid-state memristors, analog silicon neurons and low-power clockless system architecture. This novel approach offers an entirely new way of implementing high-performance massively parallel high-speed processing capability, crucial to replace todays high-power supercomputing systems. Using this approach, the Phase II BRAINWARE system architecture uniquely integrates multiple independently packaged memristive crossbars with VLSI-based analog neural network. Superior to the state-of-the-art parallel processing method, this integration results in a small, lightweight, low-power cognitive processing technology suitable for integration in unmanned aerial system (UAS) image processing platforms and cognitive communication systems. Additionally, BRAINWARE processors offer unprecedented capabilities: immediate sleep and wake-up function, low noise and electromagnetic emission and high resistance to hardware attack. We expect that at the end of Phase II, a BRAINWARE system prototype with processing power equivalent to 50 million mammalian neurons occupying less than 15 cubic centimeters will be ready for initial Army testing.