ROMA: a Read-Only-Memory-based Accelerator for QLoRA-based On-Device LLM

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Wang, Wenqiang, Zhang, Yijia, Zhang, Zikai, Huo, Guanting, Liang, Hao, Cao, Shijie, Xu, Ningyi
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Wang, Wenqiang
Zhang, Yijia
Zhang, Zikai
Huo, Guanting
Liang, Hao
Cao, Shijie
Xu, Ningyi
author_facet Wang, Wenqiang
Zhang, Yijia
Zhang, Zikai
Huo, Guanting
Liang, Hao
Cao, Shijie
Xu, Ningyi
contents As large language models (LLMs) demonstrate powerful capabilities, deploying them on edge devices has become increasingly crucial, offering advantages in privacy and real-time interaction. QLoRA has emerged as the standard approach for on-device LLMs, leveraging quantized models to reduce memory and computational costs while utilizing LoRA for task-specific adaptability. In this work, we propose ROMA, a QLoRA accelerator with a hybrid storage architecture that uses ROM for quantized base models and SRAM for LoRA weights and KV cache. Our insight is that the quantized base model is stable and converged, making it well-suited for ROM storage. Meanwhile, LoRA modules offer the flexibility to adapt to new data without requiring updates to the base model. To further reduce the area cost of ROM, we introduce a novel B-ROM design and integrate it with the compute unit to form a fused cell for efficient use of chip resources. ROMA can effectively store both a 4-bit 3B and a 2-bit 8B LLaMA model entirely on-chip, achieving a notable generation speed exceeding 20,000 tokens/s without requiring external memory.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_12988
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ROMA: a Read-Only-Memory-based Accelerator for QLoRA-based On-Device LLM
Wang, Wenqiang
Zhang, Yijia
Zhang, Zikai
Huo, Guanting
Liang, Hao
Cao, Shijie
Xu, Ningyi
Hardware Architecture
Artificial Intelligence
As large language models (LLMs) demonstrate powerful capabilities, deploying them on edge devices has become increasingly crucial, offering advantages in privacy and real-time interaction. QLoRA has emerged as the standard approach for on-device LLMs, leveraging quantized models to reduce memory and computational costs while utilizing LoRA for task-specific adaptability. In this work, we propose ROMA, a QLoRA accelerator with a hybrid storage architecture that uses ROM for quantized base models and SRAM for LoRA weights and KV cache. Our insight is that the quantized base model is stable and converged, making it well-suited for ROM storage. Meanwhile, LoRA modules offer the flexibility to adapt to new data without requiring updates to the base model. To further reduce the area cost of ROM, we introduce a novel B-ROM design and integrate it with the compute unit to form a fused cell for efficient use of chip resources. ROMA can effectively store both a 4-bit 3B and a 2-bit 8B LLaMA model entirely on-chip, achieving a notable generation speed exceeding 20,000 tokens/s without requiring external memory.
title ROMA: a Read-Only-Memory-based Accelerator for QLoRA-based On-Device LLM
topic Hardware Architecture
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.12988