BitLogic: Training Framework for Gradient-Based FPGA-Native Neural Networks

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Bührer, Simon, Plesner, Andreas, Till, Aczel, Wattenhofer, Roger
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866915784047984640
author Bührer, Simon
Plesner, Andreas
Till, Aczel
Wattenhofer, Roger
author_facet Bührer, Simon
Plesner, Andreas
Till, Aczel
Wattenhofer, Roger
contents The energy and latency costs of deep neural network inference are increasingly driven by deployment rather than training, motivating hardware-specialized alternatives to arithmetic-heavy models. Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) provide an attractive substrate for such specialization, yet existing FPGA-based neural approaches are fragmented and difficult to compare. We present BitLogic, a fully gradient-based, end-to-end trainable framework for FPGA-native neural networks built around Lookup Table (LUT) computation. BitLogic replaces multiply-accumulate operations with differentiable LUT nodes that map directly to FPGA primitives, enabling native binary computation, sparse connectivity, and efficient hardware realization. The framework offers a modular functional API supporting diverse architectures, along with learned encoders, hardware-aware heads, and multiple boundary-consistent LUT relaxations. An automated Register Transfer Level (RTL) export pipeline translates trained PyTorch models into synthesizable HDL, ensuring equivalence between software and hardware inference. Experiments across standard vision benchmarks and heterogeneous hardware platforms demonstrate competitive accuracy and substantial gains in FPGA efficiency, including 72.3% test accuracy on CIFAR-10 achieved with fewer than 0.3M logic gates, while attaining sub-20 ns single-sample inference using only LUT resources.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_07400
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle BitLogic: Training Framework for Gradient-Based FPGA-Native Neural Networks
Bührer, Simon
Plesner, Andreas
Till, Aczel
Wattenhofer, Roger
Machine Learning
Emerging Technologies
Performance
The energy and latency costs of deep neural network inference are increasingly driven by deployment rather than training, motivating hardware-specialized alternatives to arithmetic-heavy models. Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) provide an attractive substrate for such specialization, yet existing FPGA-based neural approaches are fragmented and difficult to compare. We present BitLogic, a fully gradient-based, end-to-end trainable framework for FPGA-native neural networks built around Lookup Table (LUT) computation. BitLogic replaces multiply-accumulate operations with differentiable LUT nodes that map directly to FPGA primitives, enabling native binary computation, sparse connectivity, and efficient hardware realization. The framework offers a modular functional API supporting diverse architectures, along with learned encoders, hardware-aware heads, and multiple boundary-consistent LUT relaxations. An automated Register Transfer Level (RTL) export pipeline translates trained PyTorch models into synthesizable HDL, ensuring equivalence between software and hardware inference. Experiments across standard vision benchmarks and heterogeneous hardware platforms demonstrate competitive accuracy and substantial gains in FPGA efficiency, including 72.3% test accuracy on CIFAR-10 achieved with fewer than 0.3M logic gates, while attaining sub-20 ns single-sample inference using only LUT resources.
title BitLogic: Training Framework for Gradient-Based FPGA-Native Neural Networks
topic Machine Learning
Emerging Technologies
Performance
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.07400