Implementation of high-efficiency, lightweight residual spiking neural network processor based on field-programmable gate arrays

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Main Authors: Yue, Hou, Shuiying, Xiang, Tao, Zou, Zhiquan, Huang, Shangxuan, Shi, Xingxing, Guo, Yahui, Zhang, Ling, Zheng, Yue, Hao
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Yue, Hou
Shuiying, Xiang
Tao, Zou
Zhiquan, Huang
Shangxuan, Shi
Xingxing, Guo
Yahui, Zhang
Ling, Zheng
Yue, Hao
author_facet Yue, Hou
Shuiying, Xiang
Tao, Zou
Zhiquan, Huang
Shangxuan, Shi
Xingxing, Guo
Yahui, Zhang
Ling, Zheng
Yue, Hao
contents With the development of hardware-optimized deployment of spiking neural networks (SNNs), SNN processors based on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have become a research hotspot due to their efficiency and flexibility. However, existing methods rely on multi-timestep training and reconfigurable computing architectures, which increases computational and memory overhead, thus reducing deployment efficiency. This work presents an efficient and lightweight residual SNN accelerator that combines algorithm and hardware co-design to optimize inference energy efficiency. In terms of the algorithm, we employ single-timesteps training, integrate grouped convolutions, and fuse batch normalization (BN) layers, thus compressing the network to only 0.69M parameters. Quantization-aware training (QAT) further constrains all parameters to 8-bit precision. In terms of hardware, the reuse of intra-layer resources maximizes FPGA utilization, a full pipeline cross-layer architecture improves throughput, and on-chip block RAM (BRAM) stores network parameters and intermediate results to improve memory efficiency. The experimental results show that the proposed processor achieves a classification accuracy of 87.11% on the CIFAR-10 dataset, with an inference time of 3.98 ms per image and an energy efficiency of 183.5 FPS/W. Compared with mainstream graphics processing unit (GPU) platforms, it achieves more than double the energy efficiency. Furthermore, compared with other SNN processors, it achieves at least a 4x faster inference speed and a 5x higher energy efficiency.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_00802
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Implementation of high-efficiency, lightweight residual spiking neural network processor based on field-programmable gate arrays
Yue, Hou
Shuiying, Xiang
Tao, Zou
Zhiquan, Huang
Shangxuan, Shi
Xingxing, Guo
Yahui, Zhang
Ling, Zheng
Yue, Hao
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
With the development of hardware-optimized deployment of spiking neural networks (SNNs), SNN processors based on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have become a research hotspot due to their efficiency and flexibility. However, existing methods rely on multi-timestep training and reconfigurable computing architectures, which increases computational and memory overhead, thus reducing deployment efficiency. This work presents an efficient and lightweight residual SNN accelerator that combines algorithm and hardware co-design to optimize inference energy efficiency. In terms of the algorithm, we employ single-timesteps training, integrate grouped convolutions, and fuse batch normalization (BN) layers, thus compressing the network to only 0.69M parameters. Quantization-aware training (QAT) further constrains all parameters to 8-bit precision. In terms of hardware, the reuse of intra-layer resources maximizes FPGA utilization, a full pipeline cross-layer architecture improves throughput, and on-chip block RAM (BRAM) stores network parameters and intermediate results to improve memory efficiency. The experimental results show that the proposed processor achieves a classification accuracy of 87.11% on the CIFAR-10 dataset, with an inference time of 3.98 ms per image and an energy efficiency of 183.5 FPS/W. Compared with mainstream graphics processing unit (GPU) platforms, it achieves more than double the energy efficiency. Furthermore, compared with other SNN processors, it achieves at least a 4x faster inference speed and a 5x higher energy efficiency.
title Implementation of high-efficiency, lightweight residual spiking neural network processor based on field-programmable gate arrays
topic Neural and Evolutionary Computing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.00802