PowerFlow-DNN: Compiler-Directed Fine-Grained Power Orchestration for End-to-End Edge AI Inference

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Chen, Paul, Kim, Jeongeun, Zhu, Wenbo, Li, Yuanhan, Huang, Shunyao, Weng, Chenjie, Torng, Christopher
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Chen, Paul
Kim, Jeongeun
Zhu, Wenbo
Li, Yuanhan
Huang, Shunyao
Weng, Chenjie
Torng, Christopher
author_facet Chen, Paul
Kim, Jeongeun
Zhu, Wenbo
Li, Yuanhan
Huang, Shunyao
Weng, Chenjie
Torng, Christopher
contents Edge AI systems often operate under stringent energy and volume constraints that demand extreme efficiency under limited battery capacity, with requirements worsening as intelligent capability demands advance. Prior literature suggests that fine-grained power orchestration, including DVFS and power gating, enables significant energy efficiency benefits that cannot be left unexploited, while still exhibiting unexplored challenges. We observe that layer-level approaches incur unintended overheads due to inter-layer coupling of power control decisions, and that jointly managing these mechanisms under practical constraints such as limited voltage rails and transition overheads leads to a rapidly growing combinatorial schedule space. To address this, we propose PowerFlow-DNN, a compiler-directed framework for end-to-end power-state orchestration in ultra-low-power accelerators. By constructing a rigorous problem formulation for deadline-constrained, real-time, periodic inference as a unified inter-layer power-scheduling problem, our framework enables automated discovery of energy-minimal power-state schedules that adhere to a deadline while accounting for end-to-end, inter-layer impacts. We evaluate the framework on a DNN accelerator VLSI implementation in TSMC 40nm technology. Across representative edge networks, we show that PowerFlow-DNN discovers near-optimal solutions under the discretized formulation and achieves energy within 0.68\% of the exact ILP oracle, reducing energy by up to 37\% compared to an aggressive baseline without power orchestration, while reasoning over a combinatorial schedule space of over $10^{160}$ possible power-state assignments, yet operating on a structured layered state graph that enables efficient optimization, achieving up to 2.14$\times$ solver speedup via lightweight pruning.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_23882
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle PowerFlow-DNN: Compiler-Directed Fine-Grained Power Orchestration for End-to-End Edge AI Inference
Chen, Paul
Kim, Jeongeun
Zhu, Wenbo
Li, Yuanhan
Huang, Shunyao
Weng, Chenjie
Torng, Christopher
Hardware Architecture
Edge AI systems often operate under stringent energy and volume constraints that demand extreme efficiency under limited battery capacity, with requirements worsening as intelligent capability demands advance. Prior literature suggests that fine-grained power orchestration, including DVFS and power gating, enables significant energy efficiency benefits that cannot be left unexploited, while still exhibiting unexplored challenges. We observe that layer-level approaches incur unintended overheads due to inter-layer coupling of power control decisions, and that jointly managing these mechanisms under practical constraints such as limited voltage rails and transition overheads leads to a rapidly growing combinatorial schedule space. To address this, we propose PowerFlow-DNN, a compiler-directed framework for end-to-end power-state orchestration in ultra-low-power accelerators. By constructing a rigorous problem formulation for deadline-constrained, real-time, periodic inference as a unified inter-layer power-scheduling problem, our framework enables automated discovery of energy-minimal power-state schedules that adhere to a deadline while accounting for end-to-end, inter-layer impacts. We evaluate the framework on a DNN accelerator VLSI implementation in TSMC 40nm technology. Across representative edge networks, we show that PowerFlow-DNN discovers near-optimal solutions under the discretized formulation and achieves energy within 0.68\% of the exact ILP oracle, reducing energy by up to 37\% compared to an aggressive baseline without power orchestration, while reasoning over a combinatorial schedule space of over $10^{160}$ possible power-state assignments, yet operating on a structured layered state graph that enables efficient optimization, achieving up to 2.14$\times$ solver speedup via lightweight pruning.
title PowerFlow-DNN: Compiler-Directed Fine-Grained Power Orchestration for End-to-End Edge AI Inference
topic Hardware Architecture
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.23882