English

AnalogVNN: A fully modular framework for modeling and optimizing photonic neural networks

Machine Learning 2023-12-29 v2 Emerging Technologies Optics

Abstract

AnalogVNN, a simulation framework built on PyTorch which can simulate the effects of optoelectronic noise, limited precision, and signal normalization present in photonic neural network accelerators. We use this framework to train and optimize linear and convolutional neural networks with up to 9 layers and ~1.7 million parameters, while gaining insights into how normalization, activation function, reduced precision, and noise influence accuracy in analog photonic neural networks. By following the same layer structure design present in PyTorch, the AnalogVNN framework allows users to convert most digital neural network models to their analog counterparts with just a few lines of code, taking full advantage of the open-source optimization, deep learning, and GPU acceleration libraries available through PyTorch. Code is available at https://analogvnn.github.io

Cite

@article{arxiv.2210.10048,
  title  = {AnalogVNN: A fully modular framework for modeling and optimizing photonic neural networks},
  author = {Vivswan Shah and Nathan Youngblood},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.10048},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

28 pages; replace figure 6C; better format; updated links

R2 v1 2026-06-28T03:56:19.249Z