Author Topic: What sort of power can these small microprocessors do? Can i run an ANN?  (Read 1608 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline jim5192Topic starter

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 18
  • Helpful? 0
  • "Brains!"
I'm curious what sort of power these microprocesses possess. I want to run a neural network on one. how many "neurons" can i attempt to simulate before it slows down. I know there are a wide range of algorithms for ANN's but let's assume no back-propogation and I'm using matrix techniques. , perhaps a computational complexity of O(~n^3)

Also, of course there are a wide range of speeds for a microprocessors but I have literally no clue. 1/100th the speed of a laptop/desktop comp? no clue. just a ballpark figure.

I'm an EE with virtually no sense in computer stuff other than knowing how to program. This is sort of a 2ndary question but what should I study (textbook wise) to gain a more intuitive sense on how to construct large digital systems, perhaps design of lone systems but just, design large, complex "motherboard-like" pieces of hardware for advanced computational projects?

Thanks for whatever advice you can give!!!!!!!!!!!
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."-Einstein

Offline waltr

  • Supreme Robot
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,944
  • Helpful? 99
Re: What sort of power can these small microprocessors do? Can i run an ANN?
« Reply #1 on: November 13, 2011, 09:16:15 AM »
Well the typical way is to count the number of native instructions (op-codes or assembler) the algorithm executes then calculate the time based on the processor's instruction clock to get the number of instructions per second which can be expressed in MIPS (Million Instructions per Second). Then you can compare different processors.

Another part of evaluating different processors is the processor architecture (Harvard or Von Neuman) and how this affects the efficiency of the algorithm.

To learn how this is done start with a simple software delay function. Obtain the assembler list of the code and count instructions.

« Last Edit: November 13, 2011, 09:21:56 AM by waltr »

 


Get Your Ad Here