Open-source Stand-Alone Versatile Tensor Accelerator

Abstract

Machine Learning (ML) applications demand significant computational resources, posing challenges for safety-critical domains like aeronautics. The Versatile Tensor Accelerator (VTA) is a promising FPGA-based solution, but its adoption was hindered by its dependency on the TVM compiler and by other code non-compliant with certification requirements. This paper presents an open-source, standalone Python compiler pipeline for the VTA, developed from scratch and designed with certification requirements, modularity, and extensibility in mind. The compiler's effectiveness is demonstrated by compiling and executing LeNet-5 Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) using the VTA simulators, and preliminary results indicate a strong potential for scaling its capabilities to larger CNN architectures. All contributions are publicly available.