An In-Memory VLSI Architecture for Convolutional Neural Networks

Mingu Kang, Sungmin Lim, Sujan Gonugondla, Naresh R. Shanbhag

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper presents an energy-efficient and high throughput architecture for convolutional neural networks (CNN). Architectural and circuit techniques are proposed to address the dominant energy and delay costs associated with data movement in CNNs. The proposed architecture employs a deep in-memory architecture, to embed energy-efficient low swing mixed-signal computations in the periphery of the SRAM bitcell array. An efficient data access pattern and a mixed-signal multiplier are proposed to exploit data reuse opportunities in convolution. Silicon-validated energy, delay, and behavioral models of the proposed architecture are developed and employed to perform large-scale system simulations. System-level simulations using these models show >97% detection accuracy on the MNIST data set, along with $4.9\times $ and $2.4\times $ improvements in energy efficiency and throughput, respectively, leading to $11.9\times $ reduction in energy-delay product as compared with a conventional (SRAM + digital processor) architecture.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number8345293
Pages (from-to)494-505
Number of pages12
JournalIEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems
Volume8
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2018

Keywords

  • Convolutional neural networks (CNN)
  • accelerator
  • analog processing
  • in-memory computing
  • machine learning

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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