CFEACT: A CGRA-based Framework Enabling Agile CNN and Transformer Accelerator Design

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and transformer neural networks have been adopted in a wide range of applications such as natural language processing and computer vision. Coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures (CGRAs) are highly suitable for CNN and transformer applications due to their high flexibility and energy efficiency. However, current implementations of CGRA for CNNs and transformers have several limitations including the lack of System-on-Chip (SoC), insufficient support for nonlinear functions and the absence of a software toolchain. To address these challenges, we present CFEACT, a CGRA-based framework that enables agile development of CNN and transformer accelerators. CFEACT offers a broad design space of efficient CGRA accelerators through a highly flexible architecture template. The well-designed SoC, innovative mapping schemes, and comprehensive software toolchain offer a complete solution for implementing various CNN and transformer models on the generated CGRAs. Compared with the state-of-the-art works, accelerators generated by CFEACT can achieve more than $2 \times$ improvement in area-delay product for CNNs and an average of $2 \times$ higher performance for transformers.