Title
VIBNN: Hardware Acceleration of Bayesian Neural Networks.
Abstract
Bayesian Neural Networks (BNNs) have been proposed to address the problem of model uncertainty in training and inference. By introducing weights associated with conditioned probability distributions, BNNs are capable of resolving the overfitting issue commonly seen in conventional neural networks and allow for small-data training, through the variational inference process. Frequent usage of Gaussian random variables in this process requires a properly optimized Gaussian Random Number Generator (GRNG). The high hardware cost of conventional GRNG makes the hardware implementation of BNNs challenging. In this paper, we propose VIBNN, an FPGA-based hardware accelerator design for variational inference on BNNs. We explore the design space for massive amount of Gaussian variable sampling tasks in BNNs. Specifically, we introduce two high performance Gaussian (pseudo) random number generators: 1) the RAM-based Linear Feedback Gaussian Random Number Generator (RLF-GRNG), which is inspired by the properties of binomial distribution and linear feedback logics; and 2) the Bayesian Neural Network-oriented Wallace Gaussian Random Number Generator. To achieve high scalability and efficient memory access, we propose a deep pipelined accelerator architecture with fast execution and good hardware utilization. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed VIBNN implementations on an FPGA can achieve throughput of 321,543.4 Images/s and energy efficiency upto 52,694.8 Images/J while maintaining similar accuracy as its software counterpart.
Year
DOI
Venue
2018
10.1145/3173162.3173212
ASPLOS
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Bayesian neural network, FPGA, neural network
Conference
abs/1802.00822
Issue
ISSN
ISBN
2
0362-1340
978-1-4503-4911-6
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
9
0.72
28
Authors
8
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Ruizhe Cai190.72
Ao Ren29611.53
Ning Liu3153.59
Caiwen Ding414226.52
L. H. Wang5123.12
Xuehai Qian6925.98
Massoud Pedram778011211.32
Yanzhi Wang81082136.11