An Energy-Efficient CNN/Transformer Hybrid Neural Semantic Segmentation Processor With Chunk-Based Bit Plane Data Compression and Similarity-Based Token-Level Skipping Exploitation

• Published in: IEEE transactions on circuits and systems. I, Regular papers pp. 1 - 12
• Main Authors: Park, Jongjun, Kim, Seryeong, Park, Wonhoon, Song, Seokchan, Yoo, Hoi-Jun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 16.10.2024
• Subjects: clock gating; coarse skipping; Computational efficiency; Convolution; data compression; Decoding; Digital processor; Energy efficiency; external memory access; Image coding; Indexes; Memory management; mixed transformer; Real-time systems; Semantic segmentation; Transformers

A novel energy-efficient semantic segmentation (SS) processor is proposed for achieving high system energy efficiency on mobile devices. 1) Excessive external memory access and 2) a large amount of redundant computation hinders energy-efficient SS acceleration. Three key features enable real-time en...