IzhiRISC-V -- a RISC-V-based Processor with Custom ISA Extension for Spiking Neuron Networks Processing with Izhikevich Neurons

Abstract: Spiking Neural Network processing promises to provide high energy efficiency due to the sparsity of the spiking events. However, when realized on general-purpose hardware -- such as a RISC-V processor -- this promise can be undermined and overshadowed by the inefficient code, stemming from repeated usage of basic instructions for updating all the neurons in the network. One of the possible solutions to this issue is the introduction of a custom ISA extension with neuromorphic instructions for spiking neuron updating, and realizing those instructions in bespoke hardware expansion to the existing ALU. In this paper, we present the first step towards realizing a large-scale system based on the RISC-V-compliant processor called IzhiRISC-V, supporting the custom neuromorphic ISA extension.