Simeuro: A Hybrid CPU-GPU Parallel Simulator for Neuromorphic Computing Chips

Huaipeng Zhang, Nhut-Minh Ho, Dogukan Yigit Polat, Peng Chen, Mohamed Wahib, Truong Thao Nguyen, Jintao Meng, Rick Siow Mong Goh, Satoshi Matsuoka, Tao Luo, Weng-Fai Wong

Abstract: With the success of deep learning, there have been numerous efforts to build hardware for it. One approach that is gaining momentum is neuromorphic computing with spiking neural networks (SNNs), which are multiplication-free and open the possibility of using analog computing via novel technologies. However, to design effective and efficient hardware for such architectures, a fast and accurate software simulator is key. This article presents Simeuro, a fast and scalable system-level simulator for SNN models used in neuromorphic accelerators. The simulator uses spike-level details and configurable architectural constraints that are independent of the underlying hardware implementation. Simeuro supports a wide range of features including analog computing, novel memory (currently, RRAM is supported), and a full network-on-chip. The simulator can provide detailed simulation results such as routing statistics, energy consumption, delay, and accuracy of arbitrarily defined SNN architectures. Our simulator leverages a CPU-GPU hybrid environment to expedite the simulation by scaling out to multi-nodes equipped with multi-GPUs. We are able to conduct core simulations for a system-scale SNN chip of 20,000 neuromorphic cores on up to 512 A100 GPUs in a few minutes.