Photonic tensor accelerators for artificial neural networks
US12387094B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Oct 15, 2019 |
| Grant date | Aug 12, 2025 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Apr 30, 2042 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04B10/58
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Photonic units for vector-vector multiplication, matrix-vector multiplication, matrix-matrix multiplication, batch matrix-matrix multiplication, and tensor-tensor multiplication are described. Multiplications are through coherent mixing and square-law detection. There are many dimensions—wavelength, vector mode, quadrature, and three dimensions of space—that can be used to construct photonic accelerators. The encoded input vector or input matrix is fanned out into a desired number of copies and mixed with the corresponding encoded local oscillators containing the weight vectors comprising the weight matrix. Any subset of two (three) dimensions can be used to construct photonic accelerators for matrix-vector (matrix-matrix) multiplications. Multiple dimensions can be combined into a hyperdimension to increase the scalability. Each dimension, each non-overlapping subset of a dimension, or each non-overlapping subset of a hyperdimension, can be used independently to construct a photonic tensor accelerator (PTA) for batch matrix multiplication, or tensor multiplication operations.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.