Presentation
Bridging the Gap Between Neural Network Exploration and Hardware Implementation
DescriptionDeep Learning algorithms are rapidly evolving, with new techniques and architectures being proposed on a regular basis. This poses a significant challenge for hardware design. These algorithms often require specialized hardware accelerators for efficient execution. However, the design cycle for these accelerators is complex and time-consuming, as it involves a significant effort to master the algorithm and implement an appropriate hardware architecture. As new DL algorithms emerge, existing hardware accelerators may become obsolete or may not be able to integrate the latest optimizations. This leads to a significant gap between newly emerging algorithms and available hardware accelerators. To address this problem, high-level synthesis (HLS) use has increased to accelerate the design process and bridge the gap between software and hardware design by describing the desired behavior of the accelerator in a high-level programming language (e.g. C++). We present a methodology that bridges the open-source DL framework N2D2 and Catapult HLS to help reducing the design process of hardware accelerators, making it possible to keep pace with new AI algorithms. By proposing a new automatic synchronization, we were able to balance the execution time of all convolutional layers in MbileNet-v1 to achieve a pipelined hardware architecture capable of handling 500 fps.
Event Type
Engineering Track Poster
TimeTuesday, July 11th5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT
LocationLevel 2 Exhibit Hall
Back-End Design
Embedded Systems
Front-End Design
IP
RISC-V