NPE: An FPGA-based Overlay Processor for Natural Language Processing

Understand

In recent years, transformer-based models have shown state-of-the-art results for Natural Language Processing (NLP).

• In particular, the introduction of the BERT language model brought with it breakthroughs in tasks such as question answering and natural language inference, advancing applications that allow humans to interact naturally with embedded devices.
• FPGA-based overlay processors have been shown as effective solutions for edge image and video processing applications, which mostly rely on low precision linear matrix operations.
• In contrast, transformer-based NLP techniques employ a variety of higher precision nonlinear operations with significantly higher frequency.