11.4 IBM NorthPole: An Architecture for Neural Network Inference with a 12nm Chip

Abstract

The Deep Neural Network (DNN) era was ushered in by the triad of algorithms, big data, and more powerful hardware processors for training large-scale neural networks. Now, the ubiquitous deployment of DNNs for neural inference in edge, embedded, and data center applications demands more power-efficient hardware processors, while attaining increasingly higher computational performance. To address this Inference Challenge, we developed the NorthPole Architecture and implemented a NorthPole Chip instantiation [1, 2].