[HN Gopher] Photonic Chip Performs Image Recognition at the Spee...
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Photonic Chip Performs Image Recognition at the Speed of Light
Author : em3rgent0rdr
Score : 74 points
Date : 2022-06-07 13:45 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| coffinbirth wrote:
| Looks like a "modern version" of the numa-rete, developed by Paul
| Weston at Heinz von Foersters Biological Computer Laboratory
| (BCL):
| https://distributedmuseum.illinois.edu/exhibit/biological_co...
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Not sure how image recognition rates (frames/sec?) translate into
| meters/sec.
| amelius wrote:
| Are the network weights hardcoded (like a ROM), or is the network
| programmable?
| wgd wrote:
| The article implies that the weights are programmable, but the
| overall shape is fixed.
| gene-h wrote:
| Now make it able to work directly on visible light or at least
| the output of an image intensifier and you can make some pretty
| fast killer drones.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| One could do preprocessing like edge detection with this, like
| happens in biological retinas. Then a lot less data needs to be
| processed down the line.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| "5-by-6 pixel array"
|
| These are not exactly high res images.
| wgd wrote:
| Equally important: "nine neurons". This is not a deep circuit.
|
| When we say that a CPU is running at some frequency that's
| essentially the speed at which a signal propagates through _all
| the gates_ of its slowest pipeline stage, and the individual
| gates have a transition frequency an order of magnitude higher.
|
| So if a CPU is running at 4GHz, it completes a clock cycle in
| 0.25ns (250ps), but that means that individual transistors must
| have latencies <=0.025ns (25ps). If you built a tiny little
| 9-neuron single-layer network out of those transistors then the
| network's latency would be around the single-gate latency and
| it would appear to be 20x better than this photonic setup, and
| even if those 9 neurons were laid out sequentially it would
| outperform this photonic chip by 2x.
|
| Now granted, that's comparing the performance of a mature IC
| process using equipment that cost billions of dollars to set
| up, to something that was built in a university lab on a
| substantially smaller budget, so direct performance comparisons
| aren't exactly fair in that sense. But it's also misleading to
| take a direct hardware implementation of an itty bitty neural
| network and handwave away the very real issues with scaling
| such an approach.
| causi wrote:
| Yes, this is seriously blurring the line between image
| recognition and a bandpass filter. There doesn't seem to be
| anything in the way of actual computation going on until the
| step where the results are read.
| etskinner wrote:
| Once a proof-of-concept exists, scaling it up is conceivable.
| Computers used to have kilobytes of RAM, now some have
| terabytes. Digital cameras used to have sub-megapixel
| resolution, now some are measured in gigapixels.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| "1 pixel should be enough for everyone"
| touisteur wrote:
| It could! https://opg.optica.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-28-
| 19-28190&id...
| mhh__ wrote:
| Most zoom calls are fine with 0 thank you very much
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Mmm...but scaling up is not the same in photonics as it is in
| digital. Everyone thinks of scaling in terms of digital, like
| Alan Turing, von Neumann, and later Moore talked about, if
| you have an amplifier you can amplify it with another
| amplifier, so as long as it's totally digital the signals can
| be manipulated at arbitrarily small scales. Not true for
| analog or photons or quantum, there's weird caveats and
| they're not well researched, this scaling works only for
| digital.
| haswell wrote:
| Sure, our existing understanding and models for scale may
| not directly apply.
|
| That doesn't limit the creation of new models and new
| understanding. Just because scaling might be different
| doesn't mean it's impossible.
|
| Our existing models did not exist at some point in the
| past.
| orlp wrote:
| For a somewhat related topic (analog image recognition), for
| those interested, I can highly recommend this video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9FZ4igNxNA
| superb-owl wrote:
| I'm really excited by the idea of using analog computing for AI,
| and the advent of analog chips. Anyone know if there's a cloud
| provider offering hourly access to analog compute?
|
| As an aside, I recently learned of https://lightmatter.co/, a
| photonic chip manufacturer
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Less than a single clock cycle (0.1 ns) of a fast conventional
| processor? This feels like the difference between
| electromechanical computing and transistors (skipping vacuum
| tubes entirely). These moments in life I hoped for as a kid, when
| you realise there's a step change between technologies you are
| familiar with and what's coming next are exhilarating and
| worrying. The downside is that everything we've created to this
| point, including all the bad applications, will be magnified by
| the same factor as the good things. Time to get our house in
| order.
| travisathougies wrote:
| There are several companies doing photonic computing (some with
| commercially available or soon-to-be-available chips).
| Unfortunately, it's currently all for naught, as existing
| available silicon hardware accelerators can currently do the
| computation faster than anyone can stream the data into the
| chip. The more interesting problem is data movement, as usual.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I guess this bodes the end of the copper PCB, except for
| power supplies.
| travisathougies wrote:
| I'm going to guess most electronics is not going to be
| super high-speed. Sort of like how fiber optic was once the
| realm of only large businesses, then small businesses, and
| now is commonly available at home (although nowhere near
| 100% adoption). I think the copper PCB will eventually go
| away, but not for many decades.
| splittingTimes wrote:
| I do not understand your remark.
|
| > do the computation faster than anyone can stream the data
| into the chip. The more interesting problem is data movement,
| as usual.
|
| Is that not the selling point of integrated photonic
| circuits? You got photonic chips/components that are
| connected by photonic waveguides. So essentially photons
| replace electrons for all intents and purposes and the data
| moves at close to the speed of light.
| thisiscorrect wrote:
| 570 ps is 0.57 ns.
| mcronce wrote:
| Also, 0.1ns would be a single clock cycle at 10GHz
| superb-owl wrote:
| We know Quantum Computing is more computationally powerful than
| classical digital computing. But I've always been curious if
| there's a middleground for non-quantum analog computing - does
| anyone know of theoretical work here? Could we potentially build
| a non-quantum analog computer that's more computationally
| powerful than a digital computer?
| XnoiVeX wrote:
| Isnt this a year old? https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.11747
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