MCU-MixQ: A HW/SW Co-optimized Mixed-precision Neural Network Design Framework for MCUs

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Gong, Junfeng, Liu, Cheng, Cheng, Long, Li, Huawei, Li, Xiaowei
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Gong, Junfeng
Liu, Cheng
Cheng, Long
Li, Huawei
Li, Xiaowei
author_facet Gong, Junfeng
Liu, Cheng
Cheng, Long
Li, Huawei
Li, Xiaowei
contents Mixed-precision neural network (MPNN) that utilizes just enough data width for the neural network processing is an effective approach to meet the stringent resources constraints including memory and computing of MCUs. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of sub-byte and mixed-precision SIMD operations in MCU-class ISA and the limited computing capability of MCUs remains underutilized, which further aggravates the computing bound encountered in neural network processing. As a result, the benefits of MPNNs cannot be fully unleashed. In this work, we propose to pack multiple low-bitwidth arithmetic operations within a single instruction multiple data (SIMD) instructions in typical MCUs, and then develop an efficient convolution operator by exploring both the data parallelism and computing parallelism in convolution along with the proposed SIMD packing. Finally, we further leverage Neural Architecture Search (NAS) to build a HW/SW co-designed MPNN design framework, namely MCU-MixQ. This framework can optimize both the MPNN quantization and MPNN implementation efficiency, striking an optimized balance between neural network performance and accuracy. According to our experiment results, MCU-MixQ achieves 2.1$\times$ and 1.4$\times$ speedup over CMix-NN and MCUNet respectively under the same resource constraints.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_18267
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MCU-MixQ: A HW/SW Co-optimized Mixed-precision Neural Network Design Framework for MCUs
Gong, Junfeng
Liu, Cheng
Cheng, Long
Li, Huawei
Li, Xiaowei
Hardware Architecture
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Mixed-precision neural network (MPNN) that utilizes just enough data width for the neural network processing is an effective approach to meet the stringent resources constraints including memory and computing of MCUs. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of sub-byte and mixed-precision SIMD operations in MCU-class ISA and the limited computing capability of MCUs remains underutilized, which further aggravates the computing bound encountered in neural network processing. As a result, the benefits of MPNNs cannot be fully unleashed. In this work, we propose to pack multiple low-bitwidth arithmetic operations within a single instruction multiple data (SIMD) instructions in typical MCUs, and then develop an efficient convolution operator by exploring both the data parallelism and computing parallelism in convolution along with the proposed SIMD packing. Finally, we further leverage Neural Architecture Search (NAS) to build a HW/SW co-designed MPNN design framework, namely MCU-MixQ. This framework can optimize both the MPNN quantization and MPNN implementation efficiency, striking an optimized balance between neural network performance and accuracy. According to our experiment results, MCU-MixQ achieves 2.1$\times$ and 1.4$\times$ speedup over CMix-NN and MCUNet respectively under the same resource constraints.
title MCU-MixQ: A HW/SW Co-optimized Mixed-precision Neural Network Design Framework for MCUs
topic Hardware Architecture
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.18267