MAC Processing Pipelines having Programmable Granularity, and Methods of Operating Same

An integrated circuit comprising:

• a plurality of multiplier-accumulator circuits connected in series in a linear pipeline to perform a plurality of concatenated multiply and accumulate operations, wherein each multiplier-accumulator circuit of the plurality of multiplier-accumulator circuits includes:
• a multiplier to multiply first data by a multiplier weight data and generate a product data, and
• an accumulator, coupled to the multiplier of the associated multiplier-accumulator circuit, to add second data and the product data of the associated multiplier to generate sum data;
• and
• a first plurality of granularity configuration circuits, wherein each granularity configuration circuit of the first plurality of granularity configuration circuits is associated with a different multiplier-accumulator circuit of a subset of the plurality of multiplier-accumulator circuits to operationally (i) disconnect the multiplier and accumulator of the associated multiplier-accumulator circuit from the linear pipeline during operation or (ii) connect the multiplier and accumulator of the associated multiplier-accumulator circuit to the linear pipeline during operation, wherein:
• the first subset of the plurality of multiplier-accumulator circuits is associated with a portion of the plurality of multiplier-accumulator circuits that is less than all of the plurality of multiplier-accumulator circuits connected in series in a linear pipeline, and
• the first plurality of granularity configuration circuits are responsive to a common granularity configuration control signal.

An integrated circuit comprising:

• a plurality of multiplier-accumulator circuits connected in series in a linear pipeline to perform a plurality of concatenated multiply and accumulate operations, wherein each multiplier-accumulator circuit of the plurality of multiplier-accumulator circuits includes:
• a multiplier to multiply first data by a multiplier weight data and generate a product data, and
• an accumulator, coupled to the multiplier of the associated multiplier-accumulator circuit, to add second data and the product data of the associated multiplier to generate sum data;
• wherein the plurality of multiplier-accumulator circuits is organized into a plurality of rows of serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits including (i) a first row of serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits and (ii) a second row of serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits, wherein a last multiplier-accumulator circuit of the first row of serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits is connected to a first multiplier-accumulator circuit of the second row of serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits via one or more row interconnects;
• and
• granularity configuration circuitry, including one or more first multiplexers disposed in an accumulation path of the row interconnects, between the last multiplier-accumulator circuit of the first row of serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits and the first multiplier-accumulator circuit of the second row of serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits, wherein, in response to:
• a first control signal, the one or more first multiplexers connect the last multiplier-accumulator circuit of the first row of serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits to the first multiplier-accumulator circuit of the second row of associated serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits to provide a first linear pipeline including the first and second rows of serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits, and
• a second control signal, the one or more first multiplexers electrically separate the first row of serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits and the second row of serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits into (i) a second linear pipeline including the first row of serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits, and (ii) a third linear pipeline including the second row of serially connected multiplier-accumulator circuits, wherein the second and the third linear pipelines are independent pipelines.