Supported simulators and hardware#
NIR is currently supported by 7 simulators and 4 hardware platforms, allowing users to seamlessly move between any of these platforms. The 6 simulators include Lava-DL, Nengo, Norse, Rockpool, Sinabs, and snnTorch. The 4 hardware platforms include Intel Loihi (via Lava-DL), Xylo, Speck, and SpiNNaker2.
The table below shows the integration progress for the respective frameworks. By “reading” a NIR graph, we mean converting it into a platform-specific representation. “Writing” a NIR graph means converting a platform-specific representation into a NIR graph.
Framework |
Write to NIR |
Read from NIR |
Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
✓ |
⬚ |
||
✓ |
✓ |
||
✓ |
✓ |
||
✓ |
✓ |
||
✓ |
✓ |
||
✓ |
⬚ |
||
⬚ |
✓ |
||
✓ |
✓ |
Why are some platforms only reading or writing but not both?#
Some platforms support both reading and writing, but in other cases it does not make sense to both read and write NIR graphs. For example hardware platforms are meant as a runtime of NIR graphs, so it rarely makes sense to convert the hardware representation back into NIR.
What about other simulators and hardware platforms?#
NIR is a recent invention, and we are working hard to integrate it with as many simulators and hardware platforms as possible. If you know of a simulator or hardware accelerator we should include, please get in touch with us here on GitHub.