DATEPetaOps/W edge-AI µProcessors: Myth or reality?

Manil Dev Gomony, Floran De Putter, Anteneh Gebregiorgis, Gianna Paulin, Linyan Mei, Vikram Jain, Said Hamdioui, Victor Sanchez, Tobias Grosser, Marc Geilen, Marian Verhelst, Friedemann Zenke, Frank Gurkaynak, Barry De Bruin, Sander Stuijk, Simon Davidson, Sayandip De, Mounir Ghogho, Alexandra Jimborean, Sherif Eissa, Luca Benini, Dimitrios Soudris, Rajendra Bishnoi, Sam Ainsworth, Federico Corradi, Ouassim Karrakchou, Tim Güneysu, Henk Corporaal, 2023

With the rise of deep learning (DL), our world braces for artificial intelligence (AI) in every edge device, creating an urgent need for edge-AI SoCs. This SoC hardware needs to support high throughput, reliable and secure AI processing at ultra-low power (ULP), with a very short time to market. With its strong legacy in edge solutions and open processing platforms, the EU is well-positioned to become a leader in this SoC market. However, this requires AI edge processing to become at least 100 times more energy-efficient, while offering sufficient flexibility and scalability to deal with AI as a fast-moving target. Since the design space of these complex SoCs is huge, advanced tooling is needed to make their design tractable. The CONVOLVE project (currently in Inital stage) addresses these roadblocks. It takes a holistic approach with innovations at all levels of the design hierarchy. Starting with an overview of SOTA DL processing support and our project methodology, this paper presents 8 important design choices largely impacting the energy efficiency and flexibility of DL hardware. Finding good solutions is key to making smart-edge computing a reality.

Publisher

@inproceedings{gomony2023petaops,
  author = {Gomony, Manil Dev and De Putter, Floran and Gebregiorgis, Anteneh and Paulin, Gianna and Mei, Linyan and Jain, Vikram and Hamdioui, Said and Sanchez, Victor and Grosser, Tobias and Geilen, Marc and Verhelst, Marian and Zenke, Friedemann and Gurkaynak, Frank and De Bruin, Barry and Stuijk, Sander and Davidson, Simon and De, Sayandip and Ghogho, Mounir and Jimborean, Alexandra and Eissa, Sherif and Benini, Luca and Soudris, Dimitrios and Bishnoi, Rajendra and Ainsworth, Sam and Corradi, Federico and Karrakchou, Ouassim and Güneysu, Tim and Corporaal, Henk},
  title = {{PetaOps/W edge-AI µProcessors: Myth or reality?}},
  booktitle = {2023 Design, Automation \& Test in Europe Conference \& Exhibition (DATE)},
  series = {DATE},
  year = {2023},
  month = {4},
  publisher = {IEEE},
  doi = {10.23919/date56975.2023.10136926},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.23919/date56975.2023.10136926}
}