STT-RAM Buffer Design for Precision-Tunable General-Purpose Neural Network Accelerator

doi:10.1109/TVLSI.2016.2644279

	STT-RAM Buffer Design for Precision-Tunable General-Purpose Neural Network Accelerator
	Song, Lili 1,2; Wang, Ying 1,2; Han, Yinhe 1,2; Li, Huawei 1,2; Cheng, Yuanqing 1,2; Li, Xiaowei 1,2
	2017-04-01
发表期刊	IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VERY LARGE SCALE INTEGRATION (VLSI) SYSTEMS
ISSN	1063-8210
卷号	25 期号:4 页码:1285-1296
摘要	Multilevel spin toque transfer RAM (STT-RAM) is a suitable storage device for energy-efficient neural network accelerators (NNAs), which relies on large-capacity on-chip memory to support brain-inspired large-scale learning models from conventional artificial neural networks to current popular deep convolutional neural networks. In this paper, we investigate the application of multilevel STT-RAM to general-purpose NNAs. First, the error-resilience feature of neural networks is leveraged to tolerate the read/write reliability issue in multilevel cell STT-RAM using approximate computing. The induced read/write failures at the expense of higher storage density can be effectively masked by a wide spectrum of NN applications with intrinsic forgiveness. Second, we present a precision-tunable STT-RAM buffer for the popular general-purpose NNA. The targeted STT-RAM memory design is able to transform between multiple working modes and adaptable to meet the varying quality constraint of approximate applications. Lastly, the reconfigurable STT-RAM buffer not only enables precision scaling in NNA but also provides adaptiveness to the demand for different learning models with distinct working-set sizes. Particularly, we demonstrate the concept of capacity/precision-tunable STT-RAM memory with the emerging reconfigurable deep NNA and elaborate on the data mapping and storage mode switching policy in STT-RAM memory to achieve the best energy efficiency of approximate computing.
关键词	Approximate computing machine learning neural network spin toque transfer RAM (STT-RAM)
DOI	10.1109/TVLSI.2016.2644279
收录类别	SCI
语种	英语
资助项目	National Natural Science Foundation of China[61504153] ; National Natural Science Foundation of China[61522406] ; National Natural Science Foundation of China[61532017] ; National Natural Science Foundation of China[61521092]
WOS研究方向	Computer Science ; Engineering
WOS类目	Computer Science, Hardware & Architecture ; Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
WOS记录号	WOS:000398858800009
出版者	IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC
引用统计	被引频次：10[WOS] [WOS记录] [WOS相关记录]
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.204/handle/2XEOYT63/7281
专题	中国科学院计算技术研究所期刊论文_英文
通讯作者	Wang, Ying
作者单位	1.Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Comp Technol, State Key Lab Comp Architecture, Beijing 100190, Peoples R China 2.Univ Chinese Acad Sci, Beijing 100190, Peoples R China
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Song, Lili,Wang, Ying,Han, Yinhe,et al. STT-RAM Buffer Design for Precision-Tunable General-Purpose Neural Network Accelerator[J]. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VERY LARGE SCALE INTEGRATION (VLSI) SYSTEMS,2017,25(4):1285-1296.
APA	Song, Lili,Wang, Ying,Han, Yinhe,Li, Huawei,Cheng, Yuanqing,&Li, Xiaowei.(2017).STT-RAM Buffer Design for Precision-Tunable General-Purpose Neural Network Accelerator.IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VERY LARGE SCALE INTEGRATION (VLSI) SYSTEMS,25(4),1285-1296.
MLA	Song, Lili,et al."STT-RAM Buffer Design for Precision-Tunable General-Purpose Neural Network Accelerator".IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VERY LARGE SCALE INTEGRATION (VLSI) SYSTEMS 25.4(2017):1285-1296.