Mathematical accelerator for artificial intelligence applications

Abstract

A system includes an accelerator to accelerate the computations of nonlinear math functions. The accelerator includes a set of first evaluators and a set of second evaluators. Each of the first evaluators and the second evaluators is a fixed-function hardware circuit specialized for evaluating a respective nonlinear function. The system further includes a processor which decodes a math instruction in an instruction set, sends to the accelerator a signal identifying a nonlinear function corresponding to the math instruction, and receives an output of the nonlinear function from the accelerator. According to the signal, the accelerator evaluates the nonlinear function using one of the first evaluators. When the signal identifies the nonlinear function as a composite function, the accelerator additionally uses one of second evaluators on an output of the one first evaluator.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.