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Architectural Support for Accelerating Machine Learning Inference

dc.contributor.authorHurkat, Skand
dc.contributor.chairMartinez, Jose F.
dc.contributor.committeeMemberBatten, Christopher
dc.contributor.committeeMemberZhang, Zhiru
dc.date.accessioned2018-10-23T13:35:04Z
dc.date.available2020-08-22T06:00:51Z
dc.date.issued2018-08-30
dc.description.abstractMachine learning has become ubiquitous over recent years, prompting many studies of architectures for accelerating these algorithms. At the same time, algorithms themselves are rapidly evolving, which means that any accelerators designed have to be efficient not just at the algorithms used today, but also at any future algorithms that may be developed. This thesis explores the question, ‘Surely specialised accelerators have their space in this landscape, but is there a case to be made for an architecture that can provide competitive performance at low power, while remaining highly programmable and future-proof?’ This work tries to answer that question with a ‘Yes’, presenting VIP (Versatile Inference Processor), a system employing well-understood concepts of vector-processing and near-data processing with some modest, but key modifications that are critical to its performance. Through detailed microarchitecture simulations, it shows that VIP achieves competitive performance on a number of machine learning algorithms such as belief propagation (BP) on Markov random fields (MRFs), and deep neural networks (DNNs) including convolutional neural networks (CNNs), multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs) and recurrent neural networks (RNNs). Through synthesis of RTL code for a VIP processing engine (PE), it shows that the requirements for VIP are modest – VIP’s 128 PEs require 18 mm2 in area and consume 3.4 W to 4.8 W of power.
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.7298/X4M906W3
dc.identifier.otherHurkat_cornellgrad_0058F_11105
dc.identifier.otherhttp://dissertations.umi.com/cornellgrad:11105
dc.identifier.otherbibid: 10489796
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1813/59700
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.subjectEngineering
dc.titleArchitectural Support for Accelerating Machine Learning Inference
dc.typedissertation or thesis
dcterms.licensehttps://hdl.handle.net/1813/59810
thesis.degree.disciplineElectrical and Computer Engineering
thesis.degree.grantorCornell University
thesis.degree.levelDoctor of Philosophy
thesis.degree.namePh. D., Electrical and Computer Engineering

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