A 57mW embedded mixed-mode neuro-fuzzy accelerator for intelligent multi-core processor

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (Al) functions are becoming important in smartphones, portable game consoles, and robots for such intelligent applications as object detection, recognition, and human-computer interfaces (HCI). Most of these functions are realized in software with neural networks (NN) and fuzzy systems (FS), but due to power and speed limitations, a hardware solution is needed. For example, software implementations of object-recognition algorithms like SIFT consume ~10W and ~1s delay even on a 2.4GHz PC CPU. Previously, GPGPUs or ASICs were used to realize Al functions. But GPGPUs just emulate NN/FS with many processing elements to speed up the software, while still consuming a large amount of power. On the other hand, low-power ASICs have been mostly dedicated stand-alone processors, not suitable to be ported into many different systems. This paper presents a portable embedded neuro-fuzzy accelerator: the intelligent reconfigurable integrated system (IRIS), which realizes low power consumption and high-speed recognition, prediction and optimization for Al applications.