Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a compute element and a routing element. Each compute element has memory. Each router enables communication via wavelets with nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. Routing is controlled by respective virtual channel specifiers in each wavelet and routing configuration information in each router. A compute element receives a particular wavelet comprising a particular virtual channel specifier and a particular data element. Instructions are read from the memory of the compute element based at least in part on the particular virtual channel specifier. The particular data element is used as an input operand to execute at least one of the instructions.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a compute element and a routing element. Each router enables communication via wavelets with at least nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. Routing is controlled by virtual channel specifiers in each wavelet and routing configuration information in each router. Execution of an activate instruction or completion of a fabric vector operation activates one of the virtual channels. A virtual channel is selected from a pool comprising previously activated virtual channels and virtual channels associated with previously received wavelets. A task corresponding to the selected virtual channel is activated by executing instructions corresponding to the selected virtual channel.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a respective compute element and a respective routing element. Instructions executed by the compute element include operand specifiers, some specifying a data structure register storing a data structure descriptor describing an operand as a fabric vector or a memory vector. The data structure descriptor further describes various attributes of the fabric vector: length, microthreading eligibility, number of data elements to receive, transmit, and/or process in parallel, virtual channel and task identification information, whether to terminate upon receiving a control wavelet, and whether to mark an outgoing wavelet a control wavelet.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a respective compute element and a respective routing element. Each compute element has memory. At least a first single neuron is implemented using resources of a plurality of the array of processing elements. At least a portion of a second neuron is implemented using resources of one or more of the plurality of processing elements. In some usage scenarios, the foregoing neuron implementation enables greater performance by enabling a single neuron to use the computational resources of multiple processing elements and/or computational load balancing across the processing elements while maintaining locality of incoming activations for the processing elements.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements comprising a portion of a neural network accelerator performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a respective compute element and a respective routing element. Each compute element has a respective floating-point unit enabled to perform stochastic rounding, thus in some circumstances enabling reducing systematic bias in long dependency chains of floating-point computations. The long dependency chains of floating-point computations are performed, e.g., to train a neural network or to perform inference with respect to a trained neural network.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a compute element with dedicated storage and a routing element. Each router enables communication with nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. The communication is via wavelets in accordance with a representation comprising an index specifier, a virtual channel specifier, a task specifier, a data element specifier, and an optional control/data specifier. The virtual channel specifier and the task specifier are associated with one or more instructions. The index specifier and the data element are optionally associated with operands of the one or more instructions.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a compute element and a routing element. Each compute element has memory. Each router enables communication via wavelets with nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. A compute element receives a wavelet. If a control specifier of the wavelet is a first value, then instructions are read from the memory of the compute element in accordance with an index specifier of the wavelet. If the control specifier is a second value, then instructions are read from the memory of the compute element in accordance with a virtual channel specifier of the wavelet. Then the compute element initiates execution of the instructions.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a respective compute element and a respective routing element. Instructions executed by the compute element include operand specifiers, some specifying a data structure register storing a data structure descriptor describing an operand as a fabric vector or a memory vector. The data structure descriptor further describes the memory vector as one of a one-dimensional vector, a four-dimensional vector, or a circular buffer vector. Optionally, the data structure descriptor specifies an extended data structure register storing an extended data structure descriptor. The extended data structure descriptor specifies parameters relating to a four-dimensional vector or a circular buffer vector.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency, such as accuracy of learning, accuracy of prediction, speed of learning, performance of learning, and energy efficiency of learning. An array of processing elements performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a respective compute element and a respective routing element. Each compute element has processing resources and memory resources. Each router enables communication via wavelets with at least nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. Stochastic gradient descent, mini-batch gradient descent, and continuous propagation gradient descent are techniques usable to train weights of a neural network modeled by the processing elements. Reverse checkpoint is usable to reduce memory usage during the training.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element comprises a respective compute element and a respective routing element. Each compute element comprises virtual input queues. Each router enables communication via wavelets with at least nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. Routing is controlled by respective virtual channel specifiers in each wavelet and routing configuration information in each router. Each router comprises data queues. The virtual input queues of the compute element and the data queues of the router are managed in accordance with the virtual channels. Backpressure information, per each of the virtual channels, is generated, communicated, and used to prevent overrun of the virtual input queues and the data queues.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a compute element and a routing element. Each compute element has memory. Each router enables communication via wavelets with at least nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. Routing is controlled by respective virtual channel specifiers in each wavelet and routing configuration information in each router. A compute element conditionally selects for task initiation a previously received wavelet specifying a particular one of the virtual channels. The conditional selecting excludes the previously received wavelet for selection until at least block/unblock state maintained for the particular virtual channel is in an unblock state. The compute element executes block/unblock instructions to modify the block/unblock state.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of compute elements and routers performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Some instructions are performed in iterations, such as one iteration per element of a fabric vector or FIFO. When sources for an iteration of an instruction are unavailable, and/or there is insufficient space to store results of the iteration, indicators associated with operands of the instruction are checked to determine whether other work can be performed. In some scenarios, other work cannot be performed and processing stalls. Alternatively, information about the instruction is saved, the other work is performed, and sometime after the sources become available and/or sufficient space to store the results becomes available, the iteration is performed using the saved information.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a compute element and a routing element. Each compute element has memory. Each router enables communication via wavelets with nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. Routing is controlled by respective virtual channel specifiers in each wavelet and routing configuration information in each router. A compute element receives a particular wavelet comprising a particular virtual channel specifier and a particular data element. Instructions are read from the memory of the compute element based at least in part on the particular virtual channel specifier. The particular data element is used as an input operand to execute at least one of the instructions.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency, such as accuracy of learning, accuracy of prediction, speed of learning, performance of learning, and energy efficiency of learning. An array of processing elements performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a respective compute element and a respective routing element. Each compute element has processing resources and memory resources. Each router enables communication via wavelets with at least nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. Stochastic gradient descent, mini-batch gradient descent, and continuous propagation gradient descent are techniques usable to train weights of a neural network modeled by the processing elements. Reverse checkpoint is usable to reduce memory usage during the training.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a compute element with dedicated storage and a routing element. Each router enables communication with nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. The communication is via wavelets in accordance with a representation comprising an index specifier, a virtual channel specifier, a task specifier, a data element specifier, and an optional control/data specifier. The virtual channel specifier and the task specifier are associated with one or more instructions. The index specifier and the data element are optionally associated with operands of the one or more instructions.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element comprises a respective compute element and a respective routing element. Each compute element comprises virtual input queues. Each router enables communication via wavelets with at least nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. Routing is controlled by respective virtual channel specifiers in each wavelet and routing configuration information in each router. Each router comprises data queues. The virtual input queues of the compute element and the data queues of the router are managed in accordance with the virtual channels. Backpressure information, per each of the virtual channels, is generated, communicated, and used to prevent overrun of the virtual input queues and the data queues.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a compute element and a routing element. Each compute element has memory. Each router enables communication via wavelets with nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. Routing is controlled by respective virtual channel specifiers in each wavelet and routing configuration information in each router. A compute element receives a particular wavelet comprising a particular virtual channel specifier and a particular data element. Instructions are read from the memory of the compute element based at least in part on the particular virtual channel specifier. The particular data element is used as an input operand to execute at least one of the instructions.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a compute element with dedicated storage and a routing element. Each router enables communication with nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. The communication is via wavelets in accordance with a representation comprising an index specifier, a virtual channel specifier, a task specifier, a data element specifier, and an optional control/data specifier. The virtual channel specifier and the task specifier are associated with one or more instructions. The index specifier and the data element are optionally associated with operands of the one or more instructions.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow-based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a respective compute element and a respective routing element. Instructions executed by the compute element include operand specifiers, some specifying a data structure register storing a data structure descriptor describing an operand as a fabric vector or a memory vector. The data structure descriptor further describes the memory vector as one of a one-dimensional vector, a four-dimensional vector, or a circular buffer vector. Optionally, the data structure descriptor specifies an extended data structure register storing an extended data structure descriptor. The extended data structure descriptor specifies parameters relating to a four-dimensional vector or a circular buffer vector.

Abstract: Techniques in advanced deep learning provide improvements in one or more of accuracy, performance, and energy efficiency. An array of processing elements performs flow based computations on wavelets of data. Each processing element has a compute element and a routing element. Each compute element has memory. Each router enables communication via wavelets with nearest neighbors in a 2D mesh. A compute element receives a wavelet. If a control specifier of the wavelet is a first value, then instructions are read from the memory of the compute element in accordance with an index specifier of the wavelet. If the control specifier is a second value, then instructions are read from the memory of the compute element in accordance with a virtual channel specifier of the wavelet. Then the compute element initiates execution of the instructions.