This book provides a structured treatment of the key principles and techniques for enabling efficient processing of deep neural networks (DNNs) . DNNs are currently widely used for many artificial intelligence (AI) applications, including computer vision, speech recognition, and robotics.

While DNNs deliver state-of-the-art accuracy on many AI tasks, it comes at the cost of high computational complexity. Therefore, techniques that enable efficient processing of deep neural networks to improve metrics—such as energy-efficiency, throughput, and latency—without sacrificing accuracy or increasing hardware costs are critical to enabling the wide deployment of DNNs in AI systems.

The book includes background on DNN processing; a description and taxonomy of hardware architectural approaches for designing DNN accelerators; key metrics for evaluating and comparing different designs; features of the DNN processing that are amenable to hardware/algorithm co-design to improve energy efficiency and throughput; and opportunities for applying new technologies. Readers will find a structured introduction to the field as well as a formalization and organization of key concepts from contemporary works that provides insights that may spark new ideas.