Microarchitecture Categorization and Pre-RTL Analytical Modeling for Sparse Tensor Accelerators

Specialized microarchitectures for exploiting sparsity have been critical to the design of sparse tensor accelerators. Sparseloop introduced the Sparse Acceleration Fea­ture (SAF) abstraction, which unifies prior work on sparse tensor accelerators into a taxonomy of sparsity optimizations. Spars...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Feldman, Andrew
Other Authors: Sze, Vivienne
Format: Thesis
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2024
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/153859
_version_ 1811091046318211072
author Feldman, Andrew
author2 Sze, Vivienne
author_facet Sze, Vivienne
Feldman, Andrew
author_sort Feldman, Andrew
collection MIT
description Specialized microarchitectures for exploiting sparsity have been critical to the design of sparse tensor accelerators. Sparseloop introduced the Sparse Acceleration Fea­ture (SAF) abstraction, which unifies prior work on sparse tensor accelerators into a taxonomy of sparsity optimizations. Sparseloop succeeds at analytical pre-RTL modeling of architecture-level metrics for sparse tensor accelerators, accurately capturing the beneficial impact of SAFs on overall design cost. However, Sparseloop lacks cost models for microarchitectural primitives and design topologies required for implementing SAFs (referred to in this work as "SAF microarchitectures".) Analysis of prior works shows that SAF microarchitectures may or may not con­stitute a significant overhead, depending on the particular design; thus it is desirable to have pre-RTL models which help anticipate SAF microarchitecture overheads. Building on the Sparseloop SAF abstraction, this work1 attempts to synthesize a number of prior works into a concise, unified, and effective framework for doing research on SAF microarchitectures. This overall framework comprises (1) a concep­tual framework which facilitates concise description and design-space exploration for SAF microarchitectures, (2) a software framework for compiling Sparseloop-style SAF descriptions into microarchitecture designs and analytical models, and (3) a compo­nent library including specific SAF microarchitecture subcomponent designs as well as RTL to support implementation.
first_indexed 2024-09-23T14:56:16Z
format Thesis
id mit-1721.1/153859
institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology
last_indexed 2024-09-23T14:56:16Z
publishDate 2024
publisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology
record_format dspace
spelling mit-1721.1/1538592024-03-22T03:17:09Z Microarchitecture Categorization and Pre-RTL Analytical Modeling for Sparse Tensor Accelerators Feldman, Andrew Sze, Vivienne Erner, Joel Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Specialized microarchitectures for exploiting sparsity have been critical to the design of sparse tensor accelerators. Sparseloop introduced the Sparse Acceleration Fea­ture (SAF) abstraction, which unifies prior work on sparse tensor accelerators into a taxonomy of sparsity optimizations. Sparseloop succeeds at analytical pre-RTL modeling of architecture-level metrics for sparse tensor accelerators, accurately capturing the beneficial impact of SAFs on overall design cost. However, Sparseloop lacks cost models for microarchitectural primitives and design topologies required for implementing SAFs (referred to in this work as "SAF microarchitectures".) Analysis of prior works shows that SAF microarchitectures may or may not con­stitute a significant overhead, depending on the particular design; thus it is desirable to have pre-RTL models which help anticipate SAF microarchitecture overheads. Building on the Sparseloop SAF abstraction, this work1 attempts to synthesize a number of prior works into a concise, unified, and effective framework for doing research on SAF microarchitectures. This overall framework comprises (1) a concep­tual framework which facilitates concise description and design-space exploration for SAF microarchitectures, (2) a software framework for compiling Sparseloop-style SAF descriptions into microarchitecture designs and analytical models, and (3) a compo­nent library including specific SAF microarchitecture subcomponent designs as well as RTL to support implementation. M.Eng. 2024-03-21T19:11:10Z 2024-03-21T19:11:10Z 2024-02 2024-03-04T16:37:57.235Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/153859 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright retained by author(s) https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Feldman, Andrew
Microarchitecture Categorization and Pre-RTL Analytical Modeling for Sparse Tensor Accelerators
title Microarchitecture Categorization and Pre-RTL Analytical Modeling for Sparse Tensor Accelerators
title_full Microarchitecture Categorization and Pre-RTL Analytical Modeling for Sparse Tensor Accelerators
title_fullStr Microarchitecture Categorization and Pre-RTL Analytical Modeling for Sparse Tensor Accelerators
title_full_unstemmed Microarchitecture Categorization and Pre-RTL Analytical Modeling for Sparse Tensor Accelerators
title_short Microarchitecture Categorization and Pre-RTL Analytical Modeling for Sparse Tensor Accelerators
title_sort microarchitecture categorization and pre rtl analytical modeling for sparse tensor accelerators
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/153859
work_keys_str_mv AT feldmanandrew microarchitecturecategorizationandprertlanalyticalmodelingforsparsetensoraccelerators