Presentation Outline

1
Presentation Outline

• Background
• Self-Replication
• Genome memory
• Self-Repair
• Conclusion

2
Introduction

• Embryonics biological inspiration
• Bio-inspired hardware
• Field-Programmable Gate Arrays
• BioWall

• Background
• Self-Replication
• Genome memory
• Self-Repair
• Conclusion

3
The BioWall
How does it work?
4
Von Neumanns Constructor
Von Neumanns Universal Constructor (Uconst) can
build a copy of itself (Uconst) and of any
finite machine (Ucomp), given the description of
both D(UconstUcomp).
DAUGHTER CELL
MOTHER CELL
GENOME
5
Von Neumann to Embryonics
UComp
UConst
Universal Computation
Universal Construction
UTM on MicTree
MicTree on MuxTree
6
Universal Construction
How do we go from an FPGA
to a cellular array?
Knowing that the structure of the cells varies
with each application!
CELLULAR SELF-REPLICATION
7
The Artificial Organism
What is an artificial organism?
An application-specific computing system.
8
The Artificial Organism
What is an artificial organism?
An application-specific parallel computing
system, made up of a two-dimensional array of
artificial cells.
Where each cell contains the entire genetic
material of the organism.
9
The Artificial Cell
What is an artificial cell?
A small (but universal) processor
containing
a memory for the genome program
an interpreter and a coordinate system
a functional unit and a routing unit.
10
Bio-Inspired Hardware
What is the size of a cell?
It depends on the application!!
Solution A novel FPGA architecture!
11
The Artificial Cell
What is an artificial cell?
A small (but universal) configurable processor ,
made up of a two-dimensional array of artificial
molecules.
12
The Artificial Molecule
What is an artificial molecule?
An FPGA element of the MuxTree family
containing
a programmable function
a set of fixed and programmable connections
a configuration register.
13
The 4 Levels of Embryonics
Population level (? organisms) Organism level (?
cells) Cell level (? molecules) Molecule
level (? transistors FPGA)
14
Defining the Needs
What do we need?
To develop a bio-inspired FPGA architecture
capable of
Supporting cellular-level self-replication.
Storing the (large) genome in each cell.
Supporting cellular-level self-repair while
tolerating minor faults at the molecular level.
15
Self-Replication

• Background
• Self-Replication
• Genome memory
• Self-Repair
• Conclusion

• Langtons loop
• Our novel self-replicating loop
• The membrane builder

16
Langtons Loop
17
Propagation of Langtons Loop
18
Our Novel Loop
19
The Loops Propagation
20
The LSL Loop
21
The Membrane Builder
22
Cellular Division
To implement cellular division, we need to split
up the FPGA into a two-dimensional grid of
identical sub-arrays of molecules, of variable
size depending on the application.
23
The Membrane in MuxTree
24
The Membrane in MuxTree
CONFIGURATION BITSTREAM
25
The Membrane in MuxTree
26
The BioWall
27
Self-Replication

• Background
• Self-Replication
• Genome memory
• Self-Repair
• Conclusion

• Memory in MuxTree
• Cyclic vs. addressable memories
• Cyclic memory implementation

28
The MUXTREE Molecule
Every cell must store the (large) genome program.
However, the only memory elements in the MUXTREE
molecule are a single D-type flip-flop and the
configuration register CREG.
29
The Genome Memory
A "conventional" addressable memory is not suited
to our architecture (decoding logic too large,
incompatible storage).
However, the access pattern of the genome program
allows us to use a different kind of memory,
which we will call cyclic memory.
Performance-wise, it is not efficient (jumps) but
the storage structure is perfectly suited to a
shift-register implementation.
30
Genome Memory Implementation
Our configuration register CREG is a shift
register.
And all the connections required for a cyclic
memory are already in place for configuration
and/or repair.
31
Self-Repair

• Background
• Self-Replication
• Genome memory
• Self-Repair
• Conclusion

• MuxTree
• Self-test
• Self-repair
• MuxTree and MicTree

32
Cellular Self-Repair
How do we implement cellular self-repair?
We need a hardware mechanism to detect the faults
and to generate a KILL signal.
HARDWARE MOLECULAR LAYER
33
MuxTree
34
MuxTree Function
35
MuxTree Connections
36
MuxTree Register
37
Why does my system crash?

• Software bugs
• Programming errors, communication errors
• Design errors
• Bad design (e.g., Pentium bug), layout errors
• Fabrication defects
• Process deficiencies, mask defects
• Lifetime faults
• Radiation-induced faults, electron migration, age

38
Fault Modeling

• Actual faults
• Shorts
• Opens
• Bridging
• Memory flips
• Fault models
• Stuck-at-1
• Stuck-at-0

39
Fault Detection

• Test at fabrication
• Test patterns
• Built-In Self-Test

40
Fault Tolerance

• Triplication
• Reconfiguration
• Online self-repair

41
Function Self-Test
42
Connections Self-Test
43
Register Self-Test
44
Register Faults Stuck-at-0
45
Register Faults Stuck-at-1
46
Self-Repair
47
Reconfiguration
48
Rerouting
49
The Spare Columns
50
The New Membrane Builder
The spare columns should be contained within a
block (cell).
51
The Membrane in MuxTree
CONFIGURATION BITSTREAM
52
The KILL Signal
53
MuxTree and MicTree
54
The BioWall
55
Conclusion

• Background
• Self-Replication
• Genome memory
• Self-Repair
• Conclusion

• Hierarchical Structure
• The BioWall and Beyond

56
The 3 Layers
57
The BioWall
58
The Future of Embryonics (1)
Self-directed replication
59
The Future of Embryonics (2)
Convergence of the POE axes
60
The End

• Background
• Self-Replication
• Self-Repair
• Conclusion

Time for some questions...