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Data-Rate-Aware High-Speed CNN Inference on FPGAs

arXiv cs.LG / 3/11/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper addresses the underutilization problem in FPGA-based CNN accelerators caused by layers that reduce data output rates, such as pooling and strided convolutions.
  • It introduces a data-rate-aware accelerator architecture that leverages design-space exploration to optimize hardware resource utilization and maintain continuous data flow.
  • Experimental results demonstrate significant reductions in arithmetic resource usage compared to prior designs, allowing efficient deployment of complex CNNs on a single FPGA over a broad range of data rates.
  • The approach improves hardware efficiency by adapting configurations according to layer-specific data rates, ensuring all hardware units remain active during processing.

Computer Science > Hardware Architecture

arXiv:2603.08726 (cs)
[Submitted on 18 Feb 2026]

Title:Data-Rate-Aware High-Speed CNN Inference on FPGAs

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Abstract:Dataflow-based CNN accelerators on FPGAs achieve low latency and high throughput by mapping computations of each layer directly to corresponding hardware units. However, layers such as pooling and strided convolutions reduce the data at their output with respect to their input, strongly effecting the data rate of the following layers. This leads to underutilization in fully unrolled designs. While prior work introduced data-rate-aware layer-wise adaptation, determining the most efficient implementation remains challenging.
This paper presents a data-rate-aware CNN accelerator architecture for multi-pixel processing. Building on existing analytical models, the proposed method performs design-space exploration to identify configurations that improve hardware utilization and resource efficiency while preserving continuous flow of data, keeping all hardware units busy. Experimental results show substantial reductions in arithmetic resources compared to previous designs, enabling efficient implementation of complex CNNs on a single FPGA across a wide range of data rates.
Subjects: Hardware Architecture (cs.AR); Machine Learning (cs.LG)
Cite as: arXiv:2603.08726 [cs.AR]
  (or arXiv:2603.08726v1 [cs.AR] for this version)
  https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.08726
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arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

Submission history

From: Tobias Habermann [view email]
[v1] Wed, 18 Feb 2026 08:46:38 UTC (112 KB)
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