新型低功耗神经元芯片,能效提升超90%,适应极端温变。
Adiabatic Capacitive Neuron: An Energy-Efficient Functional Unit for Artificial Neural Networks
- 采用绝热电容结构与低偏移阈值逻辑,降低功耗并提升稳定性。
- 在-55°C至125°C宽温域下,电压偏移低于9mV,较传统设计改善显著。
- 适用于边缘计算、物联网等对能效敏感的部署场景。
本文提出一种新型高能效的绝热电容神经元(ACN)硬件实现,支持12位精度与正负权重,基于0.18μm CMOS工艺。针对二值激活函数,设计了一种新型阈值逻辑(TL),在三类工艺角和-55°C至125°C温度范围内,上升与下降偏移电压最大仅9mV,优于传统设计(分别为27mV和5mV)。后布局仿真显示,平均能耗在SS角降低1.5%、FF角降低2.3%。与非绝热电容神经元(CCN)对比,本方案在500kHz至100MHz频率区间内,突触能量节省超过90%(提升12倍以上)。1000次蒙特卡洛仿真验证,在工艺波动与失配下,最差情况仍保持90%以上的能量节约。此外,电源电压缩放后仍维持90%以上节能效果(除全零输入外),无功能损失。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
This paper introduces a new, highly energy-efficient, Adiabatic Capacitive Neuron (ACN) hardware implementation of an Artificial Neuron (AN) with improved functionality, accuracy, robustness and scalability over previous work. The paper describes the implementation of a \mbox{12-bit} single neuron, with positive and negative weight support, in an $\mathbf{0.18μm}$ CMOS technology. The paper also presents a new Threshold Logic (TL) design for a binary AN activation function that generates a low symmetrical offset across three process corners and five temperatures between $-55^o$C and $125^o$C. Post-layout simulations demonstrate a maximum rising and falling offset voltage of 9$mV$ compared to conventional TL, which has rising and falling offset voltages of 27$mV$ and 5$mV$ respectively, across temperature and process. Moreover, the proposed TL design shows a decrease in average energy of 1.5$\%$ at the SS corner and 2.3$\%$ at FF corner compared to the conventional TL design. The total synapse energy saving for the proposed ACN was above 90$\%$ (over 12x improvement) when compared to a non-adiabatic CMOS Capacitive Neuron (CCN) benchmark for a frequency ranging from 500$kHz$ to 100$MHz$. A 1000-sample Monte Carlo simulation including process variation and mismatch confirms the worst-case energy savings of $\>$90$\%$ compared to CCN in the synapse energy profile. Finally, the impact of supply voltage scaling shows consistent energy savings of above 90$\%$ (except all zero inputs) without loss of functionality.
Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。