In-memory computing (IMC) has emerged as a promising solution for artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators thanks to the reduced data movement and improved parallelism in the crosspoint memory array. A key issue of IMC is the excessive current of the memory elements causing energy inefficiency and computing inaccuracy due to IR drop. This work reports a hardware demonstration of IMC by a 3D crosspoint (3DXP) array of phase change memory (PCM). We experimentally demonstrate feature extraction, a typical layer of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and simulate inference of a LeNet CNN for handwritten digits classification (MNIST database). Low energy is enabled by subthreshold operated 3DXP cells, while the high accuracy is supported by precise program-verify algorithms. The impact of read 1/f noise is discussed via measurements and simulations.

Low-energy, high-accuracy convolutional network inference in 3D crosspoint (3DXP) arrays

Carletti, F.;Farronato, M.;Lepri, N.;Pirovano, A.;Ielmini, D.
2024-01-01

Abstract

In-memory computing (IMC) has emerged as a promising solution for artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators thanks to the reduced data movement and improved parallelism in the crosspoint memory array. A key issue of IMC is the excessive current of the memory elements causing energy inefficiency and computing inaccuracy due to IR drop. This work reports a hardware demonstration of IMC by a 3D crosspoint (3DXP) array of phase change memory (PCM). We experimentally demonstrate feature extraction, a typical layer of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and simulate inference of a LeNet CNN for handwritten digits classification (MNIST database). Low energy is enabled by subthreshold operated 3DXP cells, while the high accuracy is supported by precise program-verify algorithms. The impact of read 1/f noise is discussed via measurements and simulations.
2024
European Solid-State Circuits Conference
3D crosspoint (3DXP)
artificial intelligence (AI)
convolutional neural network (CNN)
In-memory computing (IMC)
phase change memory (PCM)
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/1278567
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