The Pentagon's mad science division is in a hurry to start making brains-on-a-chip. According to DARPA's recently-released budget, the Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) program isn't set to being until the next fiscal year. But the agency is already ramping up preparation for the program, which promises to "develop a brain inspired electronic 'chip' that mimics that function, size, and power consumption of a biological cortex."

DARPA is holding a workshop next month for potential SyNAPSE researchers. And its providing a preview of just how challenging it'll be, to piece together a faux brain.

Earlier this week, DARPA, the Defense Department's way-out research arm, submitted its $3.29 billion budget for the 2009 fiscal year. In it are dozens of new programs -- one more far-reaching than the next.

A particularly wild project is Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics, or SyNAPSE. "The program will develop a brain inspired electronic 'chip' that mimics that function, size, and power consumption of a biological cortex," DARPA promises us. "If successful, the program will provide the foundations for functional machines to supplement humans in many of the most demanding situations faced by warfighters today" -- like getting usable information out of video feeds, and starting tasks. The agency is looking to spend $3 million next year, to get started on its faux brain effort. My guess is that it will take considerably more cash to get it done.

The goals and milestones of the DARPA SyNAPSE program will be specified in an anticipated Broad Agency Announcement. Briefly, the vision for the anticipated DARPA SyNAPSE program is to enable electronic neuromorphic machine technology that is scalable to biological levels. As compared to biological systems, today's intelligent machines are less efficient by a factor of one million to one billion in real world, complex environments. The key to achieving the vision of the SyNAPSE program will be an unprecedented multidisciplinary approach that coordinates aggressive technology development in the following technical areas: 1) Hardware; 2) Architecture; 3) Simulation; and 4) Environment. Hardware includes neuromorphic electronics with novel, high density, plastic, synaptic components; Architecture includes neuromorphic design from microcircuits to complete system; Simulation includes large-scale digital simulation of neuromorphic circuits and functional neuromorphic systems; and Environment includes virtual training, testing and benchmarking for neuromorphic systems. These technology areas as well as the overall goals and milestones of the anticipated program will be addressed at the SyNAPSE Proposer's Day Workshop and will also be described in an anticipated Broad Agency Announcement. The SyNAPSE Proposer's Day Workshop is intended to facilitate the formation of teams with the necessary expertise to respond to the anticipated SyNAPSE BAA.