# QUIDAM: A Framework for Quantization-Aware DNN Accelerator and Model Co-Exploration

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.15463 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.15463/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 32 of its 57 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 Jun 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 32)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11946/) (2019)
- [Deep Compression: Compressing Deep Neural Networks with Pruning, Trained Quantization and Huffman Coding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1510.00149/) (2015)
- [Quantization and Training of Neural Networks for Efficient Integer-Arithmetic-Only Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.05877/) (2017)
- [EfficientDet: Scalable and Efficient Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.09070/) (2019)
- [Learned Step Size Quantization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.08153/) (2019)
- [In-Datacenter Performance Analysis of a Tensor Processing Unit](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.04760/) (2017)
- [DoReFa-Net: Training Low Bitwidth Convolutional Neural Networks with Low Bitwidth Gradients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.06160/) (2016)
- [HAQ: Hardware-Aware Automated Quantization with Mixed Precision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.08886/) (2018)
- [Single Path One-Shot Neural Architecture Search with Uniform Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.00420/) (2019)
- [Soft Filter Pruning for Accelerating Deep Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.06866/) (2018)
- [EIE: Efficient Inference Engine on Compressed Deep Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.01528/) (2016)
- [Random Search and Reproducibility for Neural Architecture Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.07638/) (2019)
- [Additive Powers-of-Two Quantization: An Efficient Non-uniform Discretization for Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.13144/) (2019)
- [SCNN: An Accelerator for Compressed-sparse Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.04485/) (2017)
- [Towards Efficient Model Compression via Learned Global Ranking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.12368/) (2019)
- [Gemmini: Enabling Systematic Deep-Learning Architecture Evaluation via Full-Stack Integration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.09925/) (2019)
- [Co-Exploration of Neural Architectures and Heterogeneous ASIC Accelerator Designs Targeting Multiple Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.04116/) (2020)
- [NeuralPower: Predict and Deploy Energy-Efficient Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.05420/) (2017)
- [Accelerator-aware Neural Network Design using AutoML](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.02838/) (2020)
- [DeepScaleTool : A Tool for the Accurate Estimation of Technology Scaling in the Deep-Submicron Era](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.10195/) (2021)
- [SCALE-Sim: Systolic CNN Accelerator Simulator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.02883/) (2018)
- [Rethinking Co-design of Neural Architectures and Hardware Accelerators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.08619/) (2021)
- [Hardware-Aware Machine Learning: Modeling and Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.05476/) (2018)
- [The Architectural Implications of Distributed Reinforcement Learning on CPU-GPU Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.04210/) (2020)
- [DeepNVM++: Cross-Layer Modeling and Optimization Framework of Non-Volatile Memories for Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.04559/) (2020)
- [QAPPA: Quantization-Aware Power, Performance, and Area Modeling of DNN Accelerators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.08648/) (2022)
- [QADAM: Quantization-Aware DNN Accelerator Modeling for Pareto-Optimality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.13045/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Oaken: Fast and Efficient LLM Serving with Online-Offline Hybrid KV Cache Quantization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18599/) (2025)
- [CAMformer: Associative Memory is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.19740/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As the machine learning and systems communities strive to achieve higher energy-efficiency through custom deep neural network (DNN) accelerators, varied precision or quantization levels, and model compression techniques, there is a need for design space exploration frameworks that incorporate quantization-aware processing elements into the accelerator design space while having accurate and fast power, performance, and area models. In this work, we present QUIDAM, a highly parameterized quantization-aware DNN accelerator and model co-exploration framework. Our framework can facilitate future research on design space exploration of DNN accelerators for various design choices such as bit precision, processing element type, scratchpad sizes of processing elements, global buffer size, number of total processing elements, and DNN configurations. Our results show that different bit precisions and processing element types lead to significant differences in terms of performance per area and energy. Specifically, our framework identifies a wide range of design points where performance per area and energy varies more than 5x and 35x, respectively. With the proposed framework, we show that lightweight processing elements achieve on par accuracy results and up to 5.7x more performance per area and energy improvement when compared to the best INT16 based implementation. Finally, due to the efficiency of the pre-characterized power, performance, and area models, QUIDAM can speed up the design exploration process by 3-4 orders of magnitude as it removes the need for expensive synthesis and characterization of each design.