Presentation
SimPhony: A Device-Circuit-Architecture Cross-Layer Modeling and Simulation Framework for Heterogeneous Electronic-Photonic AI System
DescriptionElectronic-photonic integrated circuits (EPICs) present a transformative solution for next-generation high-performance artificial intelligence (AI). The advancement of EPIC AI systems, however, requires extensive interdisciplinary research across devices, circuits, architecture, and design automation. The complexity of hybrid systems makes it challenging even for domain experts to understand distinct behaviors and interactions across design stacks. The lack of a flexible, accurate, fast, and easy-to-use EPIC AI system simulation framework significantly hinders researchers from exploring their hardware innovations at different sub-areas and evaluating the system impacts with common benchmarks. To address this gap, we propose SimPhony, a device-circuit-architecture cross-layer modeling and simulation framework for heterogeneous electronic-photonic AI systems. SimPhony offers a platform that enables (1) generic, extensible hardware topology representation that supports heterogeneous multi-core architectures with diverse photonic tensor core designs; (2) optics-specific dataflow modeling with unique multi-dimensional parallelism and reuse beyond spatial/temporal dimensions; (3) data-aware energy modeling with realistic device responses, layout-aware area estimation, link budget analysis, and bandwidth-adaptive memory modeling; and (4) seamless integration with model training framework for hardware/software co-simulation. By providing a unified, versatile, and high-fidelity simulation platform, SimPhony enables researchers to innovate and evaluate EPIC AI hardware across multiple domains, facilitating the next leap in emerging AI hardware.
Event Type
Research Manuscript
TimeWednesday, June 2510:45am - 11:00am PDT
Location3001, Level 3
AI
AI4: AI/ML System and Platform Design