Variable clock adaptation in neural network processors

A system, comprising:

• neural network accelerator circuitry;
• and
• closed-loop clock-rate control circuitry coupled to the neural network accelerator circuitry, and which, in operation, generates a clock signal of the neural network accelerator circuitry, the closed-loop clock-rate control circuitry including:
• control-word generation circuitry, which, in operation, generates a clock frequency control word based on information indicative of a current frame execution rate of a processing task of the neural network accelerator circuitry and a reference clock signal;
• and
• a clock generator coupled to the control word generation circuitry and which, in operation, generates the clock signal of neural network accelerator circuitry based on the clock frequency control word.

A method, comprising:

• executing a kernel using a neural network accelerator;
• and
• performing closed-loop clock-rate control of an operating frequency of the neural network accelerator during execution of the kernel, the performing closed-loop clock-rate control including:
• generating a clock frequency control word based on information indicative of a current frame execution rate of the kernel and a reference clock signal;
• and
• generating a clock signal of neural network accelerator circuitry based on the clock frequency control word.