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Maintaining real-time synchrony on SpiNNaker

Sergio Davies, Alexander Rast, Francesco Galluppi, Steve B. Furber

Abstract

As an asynchronous universal multiprocessor for real-time neural simulation, SpiNNaker presents timing concerns not present in synchronous systems. In this paper we present a series of tools that solve the problem of synchronising a multichip distributed simulation containing multiple independent time domains. These tools hint at an important neural modelling capability of the SpiNNaker system: the ability to decouple the system time from the model time, leading to an abstract-time neural modelling platform.