IMC Architecture for Robust DNN Acceleration

RRAM-based in-memory computing (IMC) effectively accelerates deep neural networks (DNNs) and other machine learning algorithms. On the other hand, in the presence of RRAM device variations and lower precision, the mapping of DNNs to RRAM-based IMC suffers from severe accuracy loss. In this work, we propose a novel hybrid IMC architecture that integrates an RRAM-based IMC macro with a digital SRAM macro using a programmable shifter to compensate for the RRAM variations and recover the accuracy. The digital SRAM macro consists of a small SRAM memory array and an array of multiply-and-accumulate (MAC) units. The non-ideal output from the RRAM macro, due to device and circuit nonidealities, is compensated by adding the precise output from the SRAM macro. In addition, the programmable shifter allows for different scales of compensation by shifting the SRAM macro output relative to the RRAM macro output. We design a silicon prototype of the proposed hybrid IMC architecture in the 65nm SUNY process to demonstrate its efficacy. Experimental evaluation of the hybrid IMC architecture shows up to 21.9%, and 6.5% improvement in post-mapping accuracy over state-of-the-art techniques, at minimal overhead for CIFAR-10 and ImageNet datasets, respectively.