[comp.ai.neural-nets] Transputer? Was: Re: request: implementation NN on CM / transputers

finton@ai.cs.wisc.edu (David J. Finton) (03/19/90)

(Patrick van der Smagt) writes:
>Does anyone have any references or results about the implementation of
>neural networks on the Connection Machine?  What about transputers?

What are transputers?


-David Finton

robert@aerospace.aero.org (Bob Statsinger) (03/20/90)

In article <9968@spool.cs.wisc.edu> finton@ai.cs.wisc.edu (David J. Finton) writes:
>(Patrick van der Smagt) writes:
>>Does anyone have any references or results about the implementation of
>>neural networks on the Connection Machine?  What about transputers?
>
>What are transputers?

	Transputers are a family of microprocessors designed with
parallel distributed processing in mind. They consist of a RISC-style
processor with microcoded support for communicating processes. Transputers
communicate across hi-speed bidirectional links; data is transmitted
without direct CPU participation.

	At USC a transputer network has been used for an implementation
of Malsburg's dynamic link architecture for face recognition. I don't
know if the resulting paper has been widely distributed but you
could probably write Dr. Malsburg (malsburg@pollux.usc.edu) and ask him.





-- 
Bob Statsinger 				Robert@aerospace.aero.org

	The employers expressed herein are strictly mine and are
	not necessarily those of my opinion's....uh..er...whatever...

stiv@stat5.rice.edu (david n stivers) (03/20/90)

>>Does anyone have any references or results about the implementation of
>>neural networks on the Connection Machine?  What about transputers?
>
>What are transputers?

These are CPU chips manufactured by Inmos, Ltd. (a UK firm) that have 4 I/O
ports and were designed specifically for use in building parallel computers.
A very popular implementation is on cards which reside inside a PC; the PC
acts as host (terminal/file server/compiler).
I believe that the majority use a distributed memory architecture.

david n stivers
stiv@rice.edu

tedwards@nrl-cmf.UUCP (Thomas Edwards) (03/21/90)

>(Patrick van der Smagt) writes:
>>Does anyone have any references or results about the implementation of
>>neural networks on the Connection Machine?  What about transputers?

A Technical Report has been produced by Thinking Machines concerning
various implementations of backpropagation on the Connection Machine.
Contact David Singer at Thinking Machines.   

I myself have implemented backprop on the CM.  If you think a bit about
how to get the most out of the parallel structure, you can create very
speedly learning implementations on the CM for neural networks. 
My implementation used TMC written matrix algebra routines which
utitlized a very fast systollic array routine.
I happened to have needed very large nets, with few training 
exemplars.  If you have alot of training data, you could put one network
and training exemplar on each processor, and run all 64K training
exemplars at once, and then add up all of the weight deltas using
the systollic array addition commands.  The throughput can be amazing!

-Tom