In Memory Computing Hardware Accelerators For Data Intensive Applications

This book describes the state-of-the-art of technology and research on In-Memory Computing Hardware Accelerators for Data-Intensive Applications. The authors discuss how processing-centric computing has become insufficient to meet target requirements and how Memory-centric computing may be better suited for the needs of current applications. This reveals for readers how current and emerging memory technologies are causing a shift in the computing paradigm. The authors do deep-dive discussions on volatile and non-volatile memory technologies, covering their basic memory cell structures, operations, different computational memory designs and the challenges associated with them. Specific case studies and potential applications are provided along with their current status and commercial availability in the market.

This book provides a structured introduction of the key concepts and techniques that enable in-/near-memory computing. For decades, processing-in-memory or near-memory computing has been attracting growing interest due to its potential to break the memory wall. Near-memory computing moves compute logic near the memory, and thereby reduces data movement. Recent work has also shown that certain memories can morph themselves into compute units by exploiting the physical properties of the memory cells, enabling in-situ computing in the memory array. While in- and near-memory computing can circumvent overheads related to data movement, it comes at the cost of restricted flexibility of data representation and computation, design challenges of compute capable memories, and difficulty in system and software integration. Therefore, wide deployment of in-/near-memory computing cannot be accomplished without techniques that enable efficient mapping of data-intensive applications to such devices, without sacrificing accuracy or increasing hardware costs excessively. This book describes various memory substrates amenable to in- and near-memory computing, architectural approaches for designing efficient and reliable computing devices, and opportunities for in-/near-memory acceleration of different classes of applications.

Serving as a bridge between researchers in the computing domain and computing hardware designers, this book presents ReRAM techniques for distributed computing using IMC accelerators, ReRAM-based IMC architectures for machine learning (ML) and data-intensive applications, and strategies to map ML designs onto hardware accelerators.

This book describes the current state of the art in big-data analytics, from a technology and hardware architecture perspective. The presentation is designed to be accessible to a broad audience, with general knowledge of hardware design and some interest in big-data analytics. Coverage includes emerging technology and devices for data-analytics, circuit design for data-analytics, and architecture and algorithms to support data-analytics. Readers will benefit from the realistic context used by the authors, which demonstrates what works, what doesn’t work, and what are the fundamental problems, solutions, upcoming challenges and opportunities. Provides a single-source reference to hardware architectures for big-data analytics; Covers various levels of big-data analytics hardware design abstraction and flow, from device, to circuits and systems; Demonstrates how non-volatile memory (NVM) based hardware platforms can be a viable solution to existing challenges in hardware architecture for big-data analytics.

This book describes a comprehensive approach for synthesis and optimization of logic-in-memory computing hardware and architectures using memristive devices, which creates a firm foundation for practical applications. Readers will get familiar with a new generation of computer architectures that potentially can perform faster, as the necessity for communication between the processor and memory is surpassed. The discussion includes various synthesis methodologies and optimization algorithms targeting implementation cost metrics including latency and area overhead as well as the reliability issue caused by short memory lifetime. Presents a comprehensive synthesis flow for the emerging field of logic-in-memory computing; Describes automated compilation of programmable logic-in-memory computer architectures; Includes several effective optimization algorithm also applicable to classical logic synthesis; Investigates unbalanced write traffic in logic-in-memory architectures and describes wear leveling approaches to alleviate it.

This book explores new methods, architectures, tools, and algorithms for Artificial Intelligence Hardware Accelerators. The authors have structured the material to simplify readers’ journey toward understanding the aspects of designing hardware accelerators, complex AI algorithms, and their computational requirements, along with the multifaceted applications. Coverage focuses broadly on the hardware aspects of training, inference, mobile devices, and autonomous vehicles (AVs) based AI accelerators

This book analyzes energy and reliability as major challenges faced by designers of computing frameworks in the nanometer technology regime. The authors describe the existing solutions to address these challenges and then reveal a new reconfigurable computing platform, which leverages high-density nanoscale memory for both data storage and computation to maximize the energy-efficiency and reliability. The energy and reliability benefits of this new paradigm are illustrated and the design challenges are discussed. Various hardware and software aspects of this exciting computing paradigm are described, particularly with respect to hardware-software co-designed frameworks, where the hardware unit can be reconfigured to mimic diverse application behavior. Finally, the energy-efficiency of the paradigm described is compared with other, well-known reconfigurable computing platforms.

Describes principles of the emerging field of data-intensive computing, along with methods for designing, managing and analyzing the big data sets of today.