A review of basic software for brain-inspired computing

Brain-inspired computing, which is inspired by the information processing procedure and the biophysiological structure of the brain, is believed to have the potential to drive the next wave of computer engineering and provide a promising way for the next generation of artificial intelligence. The basic software for brain-inspired computing is the core link to realize the research goals of brain-inspired computing and build the ecological environment of brain-inspired computing applications. This paper reviews the status of the three major kinds of basic software for brain-inspired computing. Namely, the toolchains for neuromorphic chips, the software simulation frameworks, and the frameworks that integrate spiking neural networks (SNNs) and deep neural networks (DNNs). Afterward, we point out that a "general-purpose" hierarchical and HW/SW decoupled basic software framework would be beneficial to both the (computational) neuroscience and brain-inspired intelligence fields. And the notion “general-purpose” refers to the decoupling of software and hardware and supports the integration of computer science and neuroscience related research.