Parallel edge extraction operators on chip speed up photonic convolutional neural networks

We experimentally establish a 3 × 3 cross-shaped micro-ring resonator (MRR) array-based photonic multiplexing architecture relying on silicon photonics to achieve parallel edge extraction operations in images for photonic convolution neural networks. The main mathematical operations involved are convolution. Precisely, a faster convolutional calculation speed of up to four times is achieved by extracting four feature maps simultaneously with the same photonic hardware’s structure and power consumption, where a maximum computility of 0.742 TOPS at an energy cost of 48.6 mW and a convolution accuracy of 95.1% is achieved in an MRR array chip. In particular, our experimental results reveal that this system using parallel edge extraction operators instead of universal operators can improve the imaging recognition accuracy for CIFAR-10 dataset by 6.2% within the same computing time, reaching a maximum of 78.7%. This work presents high scalability and efficiency of parallel edge extraction chips, furnishing a novel, to the best of our knowledge, approach to boost photonic computing speed.