A RISC-V Coprocessor to Accelerate Structured Sparse-Dense Matrix Multiplications

Research output: Contribution to book/Conference proceedings/Anthology/Report › Conference contribution › Contributed › peer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Machine learning algorithms are seeing an increase in data sparsity due to optimization techniques and model compression methods. However, traditional accelerators underperform in sparse workloads due to wasted computations on zero-elements. Therefore, specialized architectures are needed to accelerate sparse computations, with a close-coupling to general-purpose processors to leverage algorithm-level optimizations. This work proposes a RISC-V coprocessor to accelerate structured sparse-dense matrix multiplications with a scalable tile-based architecture that can directly be controlled through the RISC-V core using a custom instruction set. Prototyping this design on an AMD/Xilinx ZCU104 shows a lightweight design consuming less than 60 mW of dynamic power, and an analysis of its performance shows 85-100X speedup compared to CPU.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationISCAS 2026 - 2026 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Pages1601-1605
Number of pages5
ISBN (electronic)979-8-3315-7769-8
ISBN (print)979-8-3315-7770-4
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2026
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesProceedings - IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems
ISSN0271-4310

Conference

TitleIEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems 2026
SubtitleCircuits and Systems for Intelligent Society
Abbreviated titleISCAS 2026
Duration24 - 27 May 2026
Website
LocationShanghai International Convention Center
CityShanghai
CountryChina

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0003-2571-8441/work/223382085

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • Domain-Specific Accelerators, FPGAs, Instruction Set Architecture, RISC-V, Sparse Matrix Multiplication