Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: A reconfigurable hardware accelerator implementation for spiking neural network (SNN) simulation using field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) is promising and attractive research because massive parallelism results in better execution speed. For large-scale SNN simulations, a large number of FPGAs are needed. However, inter-FPGA communication bottlenecks cause congestion, data losses, and latency inefficiencies. In this work, we employed a hierarchical tree-based interconnection architecture for multi-FPGAs. This architecture is scalable as new branches can be added to a tree, maintaining a constant local bandwidth. The tree-based approach contrasts with linear Network on Chip (NoC), where congestion can arise from numerous connections. We propose a routing architecture that introduces an arbiter mechanism by employing stochastic arbitration considering data level queues of First In, First Out (FIFO) buffers. This mechanism effectively reduces the bottleneck caused by FIFO congestion, resulting in improved overall latency. Results present measurement data collected for performance analysis of latency. We compared the performance of the design using our proposed stochastic routing scheme to a traditional round-robin architecture. The results demonstrate that the stochastic arbiters achieve lower worst-case latency and improved overall performance compared to the round-robin arbiters.
Source: Frontiers in Neuroscience
Authors: Samalika Perera, Ying Xu, André van Schaik, Runchun Wang
Institution: Western Sydney University
Language: English
Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,801
OpenAlex ID: W4407113916