GAMA: High-Performance GEMM Acceleration on AMD Versal ML-Optimized AI Engines
Journal:
arXiv
Published Date:
Apr 13, 2025
Abstract
General matrix-matrix multiplication (GEMM) is a fundamental operation in
machine learning (ML) applications. We present the first comprehensive
performance acceleration of GEMM workloads on AMD's second-generation AIE-ML
(AIE2) architecture, which is specifically optimized for ML applications.
Compared to AI-Engine (AIE1), AIE offers increased compute throughput and
larger on-chip memory capacity. We propose a novel design that maximizes AIE
memory utilization, incorporates custom buffer placement within the AIE2 and
staggered kernel placement across the AIE2 array, significantly reducing
performance bottlenecks such as memory stalls and routing congestion, resulting
in improved performance and efficiency compared to the default compiler
provided by AMD. We evaluate the performance benefits of our design at three
levels: single AIE, pack of AIEs and the complete AIE array. GAMA achieves
state-of-the-art performance, delivering up to 165 TOPS (85% of peak) for int8
precision and 83 TBFLOPS (86% of peak) for bfloat16 precision GEMM workloads.
Our solution achieves 8.7%, 9%, 39% and 53.6% higher peak throughput efficiency
compared to the state-of-the-art AIE1 frameworks AMA, MAXEVA, ARIES and CHARM,
respectively.