A 68-mw 2.2 Tops/w Low Bit Width and Multiplierless DCNN Object Detection Processor for Visually Impaired People

Deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) object detection is a powerful solution in visual perception, but it requires huge computation and communication costs. We proposed a fast and low-power always-on object detection processor that allows visually impaired people to understand their surroundings. We designed an automatic DCNN quantization algorithm that successfully quantizes the data to 8-bit fix-points with 32 values and uses 5-bit indexes to represent them, reducing hardware cost by over 68% compared to the 16-bit DCNN, with negligible accuracy loss. A specific hardware accelerator is designed, which uses reconfigurable process engines to realize multi-layer pipelines to significantly reduce or eliminate the off-chip temporary data transfer. A lookup table is used to implement all multiplications in convolutions to reduce the power significantly. The design is fabricated in SMIC 55-nm technology, and the post-layout simulation shows only 68-mw power at 1.1-v voltage with 155 Go/s performance, achieving 2.2 Top/w energy efficiency.