ARTEMIS: A Mixed Analog-Stochastic In-DRAM Accelerator for Transformer Neural Networks

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Afifi, Salma, Thakkar, Ishan, Pasricha, Sudeep
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Afifi, Salma
Thakkar, Ishan
Pasricha, Sudeep
author_facet Afifi, Salma
Thakkar, Ishan
Pasricha, Sudeep
contents Transformers have emerged as a powerful tool for natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision. Through the attention mechanism, these models have exhibited remarkable performance gains when compared to conventional approaches like recurrent neural networks (RNNs) and convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Nevertheless, transformers typically demand substantial execution time due to their extensive computations and large memory footprint. Processing in-memory (PIM) and near-memory computing (NMC) are promising solutions to accelerating transformers as they offer high compute parallelism and memory bandwidth. However, designing PIM/NMC architectures to support the complex operations and massive amounts of data that need to be moved between layers in transformer neural networks remains a challenge. We propose ARTEMIS, a mixed analog-stochastic in-DRAM accelerator for transformer models. Through employing minimal changes to the conventional DRAM arrays, ARTEMIS efficiently alleviates the costs associated with transformer model execution by supporting stochastic computing for multiplications and temporal analog accumulations using a novel in-DRAM metal-on-metal capacitor. Our analysis indicates that ARTEMIS exhibits at least 3.0x speedup, 1.8x lower energy, and 1.9x better energy efficiency compared to GPU, TPU, CPU, and state-of-the-art PIM transformer hardware accelerators.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_12638
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ARTEMIS: A Mixed Analog-Stochastic In-DRAM Accelerator for Transformer Neural Networks
Afifi, Salma
Thakkar, Ishan
Pasricha, Sudeep
Hardware Architecture
Machine Learning
Transformers have emerged as a powerful tool for natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision. Through the attention mechanism, these models have exhibited remarkable performance gains when compared to conventional approaches like recurrent neural networks (RNNs) and convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Nevertheless, transformers typically demand substantial execution time due to their extensive computations and large memory footprint. Processing in-memory (PIM) and near-memory computing (NMC) are promising solutions to accelerating transformers as they offer high compute parallelism and memory bandwidth. However, designing PIM/NMC architectures to support the complex operations and massive amounts of data that need to be moved between layers in transformer neural networks remains a challenge. We propose ARTEMIS, a mixed analog-stochastic in-DRAM accelerator for transformer models. Through employing minimal changes to the conventional DRAM arrays, ARTEMIS efficiently alleviates the costs associated with transformer model execution by supporting stochastic computing for multiplications and temporal analog accumulations using a novel in-DRAM metal-on-metal capacitor. Our analysis indicates that ARTEMIS exhibits at least 3.0x speedup, 1.8x lower energy, and 1.9x better energy efficiency compared to GPU, TPU, CPU, and state-of-the-art PIM transformer hardware accelerators.
title ARTEMIS: A Mixed Analog-Stochastic In-DRAM Accelerator for Transformer Neural Networks
topic Hardware Architecture
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.12638