Patent Document ID: 20100161533
Application ID: 12620405
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A special purpose processor for implementing a synthetic neural model of the biological anatomy of selected areas of a human brain, in which the synthetic neural model models neural elements of selected neuronal areas of the brain, each of the neural elements having a plurality of pre-synaptic inputs and a post-synaptic output, said special purpose processor comprising: a) a plurality of neural processing units, each one being associated with a plurality of the neural elements, each of said neural processing units having: (1) a first local memory for storing information corresponding respectively to each of the plurality of neural elements associated with said one neural processing unit, said information including data identifying different parameters of said one neural element, including (i) a static element description of a number of inputs to said neural element, (ii) a static synaptic description of a plasticity mode of a synapse associated with said neural element, (iii) dynamic synaptic weight variables of pre-synaptic input connections associated with said neural element, and (iv) dynamic input values for respective pre-synaptic inputs of said neural element; and (2) a programmed processor for processing and performing calculations on the dynamic synaptic weight variables and the dynamic input values, wherein said processor, in response to receiving respective dynamic weight variables and respective dynamic input values for respective pre-synaptic inputs of one of said neural elements, calculates an updated post-synaptic output activity datum for said one neural element; (b) an output storage table for storing post-synaptic output activity data of each of said plurality of neural elements; (c) a data loader for loading the information into said local memory for each said one neural element and for loading said post-synaptic output activity data of each said neural element into said output storage table; (d) a second memory for storing data records of the neural elements and pointers to said output storage table, respectively, for each of said neural elements, said data records including data identifying the synaptic connections of each said neural element to other of said neural elements; (e) an address controller for providing addresses to each of said neural processing units to store the information and transfer said post-synaptic activity output data from said output storage table into said first local memory; and (f) wherein said data controller functions to access said data records for reading said pointers to said output storage table to enable said output storage table to output said post-synaptic output activity data for use as an input to and processing by said neural processing unit.