Academic Journal

SPARROW: A Low-Cost Hardware/Software Co-designed SIMD Microarchitecture for AI Operations in Space Processors

Bibliographic Details
Title: SPARROW: A Low-Cost Hardware/Software Co-designed SIMD Microarchitecture for AI Operations in Space Processors
Authors: Solé i Bonet, Marc, Kosmidis, Leonidas
Source: UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
DATE 2022
2022 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE)
Publisher Information: IEEE, 2022.
Publication Year: 2022
Subject Terms: Neon, Microcontroladors, 02 engineering and technology, Program processors, Space missions, 01 natural sciences, Hardware, Image processing, Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Arquitectura de computadors, 0103 physical sciences, 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering, Microcontrollers, Microarchitecture, Informàtica::Arquitectura de computadors [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC]
Description: Recently there is an increasing interest in the use of artificial intelligence for on-board processing as indicated by the latest space missions, which cannot be satisfied by existing low-performance space-qualified processors. Although COTS AI accelerators can provide the required performance, they are not designed to meet space requirements. In this work, we co-design a low-cost SIMD micro-architecture integrated in a space qualified processor, which can significantly increase its performance. Our solution has no impact on the processor's 100 MHz frequency and consumes minimal area thanks to its innovative design compared to conventional vector micro-architectures. For the minimum configuration of our baseline space processor, our results indicate a performance boost of up to 9.3× for commonly used AI-related and image processing algorithms and 5.5× faster for a complex, space-relevant inference application with just 30% area increase.
This work was supported by ESA through the GPU4S (GPU for Space) project, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under grants PID2019- 107255GB and FJCI-2017-34095 (Spanish State Research Agency / http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100011033), the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme under the UP2DATE project (grant agreement 871465), the HiPEAC Network of Excellence and a first prize in Xilinx’s University Open Hardware Competition 2021 in the student category.
Document Type: Article
Conference object
File Description: application/pdf
DOI: 10.23919/date54114.2022.9774730
DOI: 10.13039/501100011033
DOI: 10.13039/100010661
Access URL: https://hdl.handle.net/2117/368180
https://doi.org/10.23919/date54114.2022.9774730
Rights: STM Policy #29
Accession Number: edsair.doi.dedup.....9d76c040e4f81df89e577d279f55db9c
Database: OpenAIRE
Description
DOI:10.23919/date54114.2022.9774730