I've programmed the Connection Machine and I took a few classes from Carver Mead -- arguably one of the fathers of the neurosynaptic approach -- and these are nothing alike. The Connection Machine was simply a highly parallel SIMD computer that looks a lot like a GPU but with relatively better cross-processor communications support. It was resolutely digital in nature.

By contrast, neuromorphic chips are based on spike trains and are a much more analog form of computing.

>neuromorphic chips are based on spike trains

So it's like the hardware version of the ANN? But with more powerful neurons (they seem to do a lot more than just decide a yes and no)

PS: I apologize for not having read the paper yet. At work right now and will delve in to it later