Always-on Deep Neural Networks

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Vasileios Belagiannis; Professor Dr.-Ing. Maurits Ortmanns
• Subject Area: Electronic Semiconductors, Components and Circuits, Integrated Systems, Sensor Technology, Theoretical Electrical Engineering
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 493129587

EdgeAI is the distributed computing paradigm for machine learning algorithm execution close to the sensor. Compared to other paradigms, it has the main advantages of data safety, low latency, and bandwidth. At the same time, there is a clear limitation that is related to deep neural networks, the current horsepower in machine learning. The latest network architectures are complex with large demands on computational resources. Consequently, deploying a deep neural network model on Edge devices is not yet straightforward. To address this problem, the network architectures have to be re-designed by taking into consideration the storage, floating-point operations, and parameter discretization factors. This process is known as neural network compression. Besides, the Edge hardware needs to be investigated and redefined for efficient neural network operations. In particular, specialized integrated-circuit (IC) accelerators can provide large adaptability regarding the memory hierarchy and can exploit medium-precision mixed-signal compute circuitry to drive down the power consumption. This project aims to find new mixed-signal circuits and architectures with a runtime-tunable compute precision, as well as the design and training of a hardware-fitted hybrid-precision neural network on such hardware. In the frame of custom hardware, neural network compression will be explored as a co-design and co-train task where the hardware will be part of the optimization.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants