用新型存内计算芯片实现边缘持续学习,速度提升67倍、能耗降低132倍。
Leveraging ECRAM for Edge Continual Learning

- 设计软硬件协同的CLASP系统,用可编程指令支持多种持续学习算法。
- 基于自研的ECRAM器件,在MNIST上实现接近GPU精度的准确率。
- 特别适合自动驾驶等需要实时学习的边缘设备,解决内存瓶颈问题。
多个边缘计算平台(如自动驾驶汽车和智能传感设备)需在真实环境中实时适应新数据。持续学习通过结合过往数据的压缩表示与新数据,成为边缘训练的可行方案。然而,传统机器学习算法在通用处理器与内存间产生大量数据移动,限制了其在边缘端的应用。存内计算(IMC)可减少这种开销,但面临两大挑战:一是计算噪声影响训练精度,二是对资源高效训练支持不足。为此,我们提出首个端到端的存内计算持续学习系统CLASP,其硬件与软件协同设计,通过可见于软件的汇编级指令支持广泛持续学习算法。系统基于后段工艺兼容的自研ECRAM器件,有效克服其他新兴存储器在存内训练中的局限。实验表明,使用ECRAM的CLASP在不遗忘和经验回放场景下,相比GPU训练达到相近准确率,速度提升67倍,能耗降低132倍(以MNIST数据集为基准)。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Several edge computing platforms, such as autonomous vehicles and smart sensing devices, need to adapt to dynamic environments in real time by learning from new data in the field. Continual learning has emerged as a promising solution for edge training, by incorporating techniques that successfully combine a highly summarized version of previously trained data (to avoid catastrophic forgetting) with recently sensed data. However, as is the case with other ML algorithms, continual learning generates significant data movement between general-purpose CPUs/GPUs and memory, impacting the suitability of continual learning for edge platforms. In-memory computing (IMC; also known as processing-using-memory) can curtail this waste and make continual learning feasible at the edge, but it faces two unique challenges: (1) IMC architectures make use of noisy computation operations that significantly harm training accuracy; and (2) IMC architectures have poor and often incomplete support for resource-efficient training. To address these challenges, we propose CLASP (the Continual Learning Acceleration System Platform), which to our knowledge is the first end-to-end system with IMC acceleration for continual learning. The hardware and software of CLASP are co-designed to support a wide range of continual learning algorithms, through software-visible assembly-level instructions that can be incorporated without constraints into ML-based algorithms. CLASP is designed around a back-end-of-line (BEOL) compatible ECRAM device that we fabricate, which can overcome the challenges of IMC-based training using other emerging memory devices. We show that CLASP with ECRAM approaches the accuracy of in-GPU training, while delivering a speedup of 67x and energy savings of 132x for learning without forgetting and experience replay using MNIST.
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。