Content area

Abstract

FPGA accelerators for lightweight neural convolutional networks (LWCNNs) have recently attracted significant attention. Most existing LWCNN accelerators focus on single-Computing-Engine (CE) architecture with local optimization. However, these designs typically suffer from high on-chip/off-chip memory overhead and low computational efficiency due to their layer-by-layer dataflow and unified resource mapping mechanisms. To tackle these issues, a novel multi-CE-based accelerator with balanced dataflow is proposed to efficiently accelerate LWCNN through memory-oriented and computing-oriented optimizations. Firstly, a streaming architecture with hybrid CEs is designed to minimize off-chip memory access while maintaining a low cost of on-chip buffer size. Secondly, a balanced dataflow strategy is introduced for streaming architectures to enhance computational efficiency by improving efficient resource mapping and mitigating data congestion. Furthermore, a resource-aware memory and parallelism allocation methodology is proposed, based on a performance model, to achieve better performance and scalability. The proposed accelerator is evaluated on Xilinx ZC706 platform using MobileNetV2 and ShuffleNetV2.Implementation results demonstrate that the proposed accelerator can save up to 68.3% of on-chip memory size with reduced off-chip memory access compared to the reference design. It achieves an impressive performance of up to 2092.4 FPS and a state-of-the-art MAC efficiency of up to 94.58%, while maintaining a high DSP utilization of 95%, thus significantly outperforming current LWCNN accelerators.

Details

1009240
Identifier / keyword
Title
A High-Throughput FPGA Accelerator for Lightweight CNNs With Balanced Dataflow
Publication title
arXiv.org; Ithaca
Publication year
2024
Publication date
Dec 16, 2024
Section
Computer Science
Publisher
Cornell University Library, arXiv.org
Source
arXiv.org
Place of publication
Ithaca
Country of publication
United States
University/institution
Cornell University Library arXiv.org
e-ISSN
2331-8422
Source type
Working Paper
Language of publication
English
Document type
Working Paper
Publication history
 
 
Online publication date
2024-12-17
Milestone dates
2024-07-28 (Submission v1); 2024-07-30 (Submission v2); 2024-09-28 (Submission v3); 2024-12-16 (Submission v4)
Publication history
 
 
   First posting date
17 Dec 2024
ProQuest document ID
3086457877
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/working-papers/high-throughput-fpga-accelerator-lightweight-cnns/docview/3086457877/se-2?accountid=208611
Full text outside of ProQuest
Copyright
© 2024. This work is published under http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.
Last updated
2024-12-18
Database
2 databases
  • ProQuest One Academic
  • ProQuest One Academic