To Spike or Not To Spike: A Digital Hardware Perspective on Deep Learning Acceleration

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ottati, Fabrizio, Gao, Chang, Chen, Qinyu, Brignone, Giovanni, Casu, Mario R., Eshraghian, Jason K., Lavagno, Luciano
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Ottati, Fabrizio
Gao, Chang
Chen, Qinyu
Brignone, Giovanni
Casu, Mario R.
Eshraghian, Jason K.
Lavagno, Luciano
author_facet Ottati, Fabrizio
Gao, Chang
Chen, Qinyu
Brignone, Giovanni
Casu, Mario R.
Eshraghian, Jason K.
Lavagno, Luciano
contents As deep learning models scale, they become increasingly competitive from domains spanning from computer vision to natural language processing; however, this happens at the expense of efficiency since they require increasingly more memory and computing power. The power efficiency of the biological brain outperforms any large-scale deep learning ( DL ) model; thus, neuromorphic computing tries to mimic the brain operations, such as spike-based information processing, to improve the efficiency of DL models. Despite the benefits of the brain, such as efficient information transmission, dense neuronal interconnects, and the co-location of computation and memory, the available biological substrate has severely constrained the evolution of biological brains. Electronic hardware does not have the same constraints; therefore, while modeling spiking neural networks ( SNNs) might uncover one piece of the puzzle, the design of efficient hardware backends for SNN s needs further investigation, potentially taking inspiration from the available work done on the artificial neural networks ( ANNs) side. As such, when is it wise to look at the brain while designing new hardware, and when should it be ignored? To answer this question, we quantitatively compare the digital hardware acceleration techniques and platforms of ANNs and SNN s. As a result, we provide the following insights: (i) ANNs currently process static data more efficiently, (ii) applications targeting data produced by neuromorphic sensors, such as event-based cameras and silicon cochleas, need more investigation since the behavior of these sensors might naturally fit the SNN paradigm, and (iii) hybrid approaches combining SNN s and ANNs might lead to the best solutions and should be investigated further at the hardware level, accounting for both efficiency and loss optimization.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2306_15749
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle To Spike or Not To Spike: A Digital Hardware Perspective on Deep Learning Acceleration
Ottati, Fabrizio
Gao, Chang
Chen, Qinyu
Brignone, Giovanni
Casu, Mario R.
Eshraghian, Jason K.
Lavagno, Luciano
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Artificial Intelligence
Hardware Architecture
Machine Learning
As deep learning models scale, they become increasingly competitive from domains spanning from computer vision to natural language processing; however, this happens at the expense of efficiency since they require increasingly more memory and computing power. The power efficiency of the biological brain outperforms any large-scale deep learning ( DL ) model; thus, neuromorphic computing tries to mimic the brain operations, such as spike-based information processing, to improve the efficiency of DL models. Despite the benefits of the brain, such as efficient information transmission, dense neuronal interconnects, and the co-location of computation and memory, the available biological substrate has severely constrained the evolution of biological brains. Electronic hardware does not have the same constraints; therefore, while modeling spiking neural networks ( SNNs) might uncover one piece of the puzzle, the design of efficient hardware backends for SNN s needs further investigation, potentially taking inspiration from the available work done on the artificial neural networks ( ANNs) side. As such, when is it wise to look at the brain while designing new hardware, and when should it be ignored? To answer this question, we quantitatively compare the digital hardware acceleration techniques and platforms of ANNs and SNN s. As a result, we provide the following insights: (i) ANNs currently process static data more efficiently, (ii) applications targeting data produced by neuromorphic sensors, such as event-based cameras and silicon cochleas, need more investigation since the behavior of these sensors might naturally fit the SNN paradigm, and (iii) hybrid approaches combining SNN s and ANNs might lead to the best solutions and should be investigated further at the hardware level, accounting for both efficiency and loss optimization.
title To Spike or Not To Spike: A Digital Hardware Perspective on Deep Learning Acceleration
topic Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Artificial Intelligence
Hardware Architecture
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.15749