An Approach of Feed-Forward Neural Network Throughput-Optimized Implementation in FPGA

Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) have become an accepted approach for a wide range of challenges. Meanwhile, the advancement of chip manufacturing processes is approaching saturation which calls for new computing solutions. This work presents a novel approach of an FPGA-based accelerator developmen...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rihards Novickis, Daniels Jānis Justs, Kaspars Ozols, Modris Greitāns
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2020-12-01
Series:Electronics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/9/12/2193
Description
Summary:Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) have become an accepted approach for a wide range of challenges. Meanwhile, the advancement of chip manufacturing processes is approaching saturation which calls for new computing solutions. This work presents a novel approach of an FPGA-based accelerator development for fully connected feed-forward neural networks (FFNNs). A specialized tool was developed to facilitate different implementations, which splits FFNN into elementary layers, allocates computational resources and generates high-level C++ description for high-level synthesis (HLS) tools. Various topologies are implemented and benchmarked, and a comparison with related work is provided. The proposed methodology is applied for the implementation of high-throughput virtual sensor.
ISSN:2079-9292