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Automatic general-purpose neural hardware generator

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Abstract

Artificial neural networks have a wide range of applications. In some applications, specific hardware is necessary when a PC cannot be connected or due to other factors such as speed, price and fault tolerance. The difficulty in producing hardware for neural networks is associated with price, accuracy and development time. Most users also prefer the network trained with a high-level tool without reducing resolution and simplifying the activation function for hardware implementation. This paper proposes an automatic general-purpose neural hardware generator, simple to use, with adjustable accuracy that provides direct hardware implementation for neural networks with FPGAs without further development.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology for their support for this work through project PEst-OE/EEI/LA0009/2011.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Competências de Ciências Exactas e da Engenharia and Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, Funchal, Portugal

    Fábio D. Baptista & Fernando Morgado-Dias

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  1. Fábio D. Baptista
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  2. Fernando Morgado-Dias
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Correspondence to Fábio D. Baptista.

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Baptista, F.D., Morgado-Dias, F. Automatic general-purpose neural hardware generator. Neural Comput & Applic 28, 25–36 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-015-2034-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-015-2034-5

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