ReLACE: A Resource-Efficient Low-Latency Cortical Acceleration Engine

We present a Cortical Neural Pool (CNP) architecture featuring a high-speed, resource-efficient CORDIC based Hodgkin–Huxley (RCHH) neuron model. Unlike shared CORDIC-based DNN approaches, the proposed neuron leverages modular and performance-optimised CORDIC stages with a latency-area trade-off. We introduce a novel Constraint-Aware Modular Parallelism (CAMP) with Precision & Stability handling to leverage maximum speedup and utilisation of hardware through hardware software co-design. The FPGA implementation of the RCHH neuron shows 24.5% LUT reduction and 35.2% improved speed, compared to SoTA designs, with 70% better normalised root mean square error (NRMSE). Furthermore, the CNP exhibits 2.85× higher throughput (12.69 GOPS) than a functionally equivalent CORDIC-based DNN engine, with only a 0.35% accuracy drop relative to the DNN counterpart on the MNIST dataset. The overall results indicate that the design shows biologically accurate, low-resource spiking neural network implementations for resource-constrained edge AI applications. The reproducibility codes are publicly available at https://github.com/mukullokhande99/CNP RCHH, facilitating rapid integration and further development by researchers.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.17392