STREAM: Towards READ-based In-Memory Computing for Streaming based Data Processing

Processing in-memory breaks von-Neumann based design principles to accelerate data-intensive applications. While analog in-memory computing is extremely energy-efficient, the low precision narrows the spectrum of viable applications. In contrast, digital in-memory computing has deterministic precision and can therefore be used to accelerate a broad range of high assurance applications. Unfortunately, the state-of-the-art digital in-memory computing paradigms rely on repeatedly switching the non-volatile memory devices using expensive WRITE operations. In this paper, we propose a framework called STREAM that performs READ-based in-memory computing for streaming-based data processing. The framework consists of a synthesis tool that decomposes high-level programs into in-memory compute kernels that are executed using non-volatile memory. The paper presents hardware/software co-design techniques to minimize the data movement between different nanoscale crossbars within the platform. The framework is evaluated using circuits from ISCAS85 benchmark suite and Suite-Sparse applications to scientific computing. Compared with WRITE-based in-memory computing, the READ-based in-memory computing improves latency and power consumption up to 139X and 14X, respectively.