Hardware Implementation of Deep Network Accelerators Towards Healthcare and Biomedical Applications

Mostafa Rahimiazghadi, Corey Lammie, Jason Kamranr Eshraghian, Melika Payvand, Elisa Donati, Bernabe Linares-Barranco, Giacomo Indiveri
2020 IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems  
With the advent of dedicated Deep Learning (DL) accelerators and neuromorphic processors, new opportunities are emerging for applying deep and Spiking Neural Network (SNN) algorithms to healthcare and biomedical applications at the edge. This can facilitate the advancement of the medical Internet of Things (IoT) systems and Point of Care (PoC) devices. In this paper, we provide a tutorial describing how various technologies ranging from emerging memristive devices, to established Field
more » ... ble Gate Arrays (FPGAs), and mature Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology can be used to develop efficient DL accelerators to solve a wide variety of diagnostic, pattern recognition, and signal processing problems in healthcare. Furthermore, we explore how spiking neuromorphic processors can complement their DL counterparts for processing biomedical signals. After providing the required background, we unify the sparsely distributed research on neural network and neuromorphic hardware implementations as applied to the healthcare domain. In addition, we benchmark various hardware platforms by performing a biomedical electromyography (EMG) signal processing task and drawing comparisons among them in terms of inference delay and energy. Finally, we provide our analysis of the field and share a perspective on the advantages, disadvantages, challenges, and opportunities that different accelerators and neuromorphic processors introduce to healthcare and biomedical domains. This paper can serve a large audience, ranging from nanoelectronics researchers to biomedical and healthcare practitioners in grasping the fundamental interplay between hardware, algorithms, and clinical adoption of these tools, as we shed light on the future of deep networks and spiking neuromorphic processing systems.
doi:10.1109/tbcas.2020.3036081 pmid:33156792 fatcat:rjwfjd7vmvglpk762mqeyiteqq