Systems and methods for reducing power consumption of convolution operations of artificial neural networks

A system comprising:

• a hardware accelerator comprising:
• a matrix multiplication unit (MMU);
• and
• a local memory device (LMD);
• a maintaining module, stored in memory, that maintains:
• a filter matrix in a filter cache included in the LMD;
• and
• a plurality of activation matrices corresponding to different rows of an activation volume in an activation cache included in the LMD;
• a directing module, stored in memory, that, for each activation matrix, directs the MMU to execute a matrix multiplication operation (MMO) using the filter matrix and the activation matrix;
• a loading module, stored in memory, that loads an additional filter matrix corresponding to a secondary filter location into the filter cache;
• an executing module, stored in memory, that directs the MMU to execute a plurality of additional MMOs, each additional MMO using one filter matrix included in the filter cache and an activation matrix included in the activation cache, such that the MMU reuses the filter matrix for at least one additional MMO and uses the additional filter matrix for a different additional MMO;
• and
• at least one physical processor that executes the maintaining module, the directing module, the loading module, and the executing module.

A non-transitory, computer-readable medium comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a computing device, cause the computing device to:

• maintain:
• a filter matrix in a filter cache included in a local memory device (LMD) included in a hardware accelerator;
• and
• a plurality of activation matrices corresponding to different rows of an activation volume in an activation cache included in the LMD;
• for each activation matrix, direct a matrix multiplication unit (MMU) included in the hardware accelerator to execute a matrix multiplication operation (MMO) using the filter matrix and the activation matrix;
• load an additional filter matrix corresponding to a secondary filter location into the filter cache;
• and
• direct the MMU to execute a plurality of additional MMOs, each additional MMO using one filter matrix included in the filter cache and an activation matrix included in the activation cache, such that the MMU reuses the filter matrix for at least one additional MMO and uses the additional filter matrix for a different additional MMO.