Pruning and Early-Exit Co-Optimization for CNN Acceleration on FPGAs

Research output: Contribution to book/Conference proceedings/Anthology/ReportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

The challenge of processing heavy-load ML tasks, particularly CNN-based ones at resource-constrained IoT devices, has encouraged the use of edge servers. The edge offers performance levels higher than the end devices and better latency and security levels than the Cloud. On top of that, the rising complexity of ML applications, the ever-increasing number of connected devices, and the current demands for energy efficiency require optimizing such CNN models. Pruning and early-exit are notable optimizations that have been successfully used to alleviate the computational cost of inference. However, these optimizations have not yet been exploited simultaneously: while pruning is usually applied at design time, which involves retraining the CNN before deployment, early-exit is inherently dynamic. In this work, we propose AdaPEx, a framework that exploits the intrinsic reconfigurable FPGA capabilities so both can be cooperatively employed. AdaPEx first explores the trade-off between pruning and early-exit at design-time, creating a design space never exploited in the state-of-the-art. Then, AdaPEx applies FPGA reconfiguration as a means to enable the combined use of pruning and early-exit dynamically. At runtime, this allows matching the inference processing to the current edge conditions and a user-configurable accuracy threshold. In a smart IoT application, AdaPEx processes up to 1.32× more inferences and improves EDP by up to 2.55× over the state-of-the-art FPGA-based FINN accelerator.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2023 Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, DATE 2023 - Proceedings
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (electronic)9783981926378
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesProceedings -Design, Automation and Test in Europe, DATE
Volume2023-April
ISSN1530-1591

Conference

Title2023 Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition
Abbreviated titleDATE 2023
Conference number26
Duration17 - 19 April 2023
Website
Degree of recognitionInternational event
LocationFlanders Meeting & Convention Center Antwerp
CityAntwerp
CountryBelgium

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-5007-445X/work/160049122

Keywords

Sustainable Development Goals

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • Adaptive Inference, CNN, Edge Computing, FPGA