microTVM Host-Driven AoT

Authors: Mehrdad Hessar, Alan MacDonald

This tutorial is showcasing microTVM host-driven AoT compilation with a TFLite model. AoTExecutor reduces the overhead of parsing graph at runtime compared to GraphExecutor. Also, we can have better memory management using ahead of time compilation. This tutorial can be executed on a x86 CPU using C runtime (CRT) or on Zephyr platform on a microcontroller/board supported by Zephyr.

import numpy as np
import pathlib
import json
import os

import tvm
from tvm import relay
from tvm.relay.backend import Executor, Runtime
from tvm.contrib.download import download_testdata

Import a TFLite model

To begin with, download and import a Keyword Spotting TFLite model. This model is originally from MLPerf Tiny repository. To test this model, we use samples from KWS dataset provided by Google.

Note: By default this tutorial runs on x86 CPU using CRT, if you would like to run on Zephyr platform you need to export TVM_MICRO_USE_HW environment variable.

use_physical_hw = bool(os.getenv("TVM_MICRO_USE_HW"))
MODEL_URL = "https://github.com/tlc-pack/web-data/raw/main/testdata/microTVM/model/keyword_spotting_quant.tflite"
MODEL_PATH = download_testdata(MODEL_URL, "keyword_spotting_quant.tflite", module="model")
SAMPLE_URL = "https://github.com/tlc-pack/web-data/raw/main/testdata/microTVM/data/keyword_spotting_int8_6.pyc.npy"
SAMPLE_PATH = download_testdata(SAMPLE_URL, "keyword_spotting_int8_6.pyc.npy", module="data")

tflite_model_buf = open(MODEL_PATH, "rb").read()
try:
    import tflite

    tflite_model = tflite.Model.GetRootAsModel(tflite_model_buf, 0)
except AttributeError:
    import tflite.Model

    tflite_model = tflite.Model.Model.GetRootAsModel(tflite_model_buf, 0)

input_shape = (1, 49, 10, 1)
INPUT_NAME = "input_1"
relay_mod, params = relay.frontend.from_tflite(
    tflite_model, shape_dict={INPUT_NAME: input_shape}, dtype_dict={INPUT_NAME: "int8"}
)

Defining the target

Now we need to define the target, runtime and executor. In this tutorial, we focused on using AOT host driven executor. We use the host micro target which is for running a model on x86 CPU using CRT runtime or running a model with Zephyr platform on qemu_x86 simulator board. In the case of a physical microcontroller, we get the target model for the physical board (E.g. nucleo_l4r5zi) and pass it to tvm.target.target.micro to create a full micro target.

# Use the C runtime (crt) and enable static linking by setting system-lib to True
RUNTIME = Runtime("crt", {"system-lib": True})

# Simulate a microcontroller on the host machine. Uses the main() from `src/runtime/crt/host/main.cc`.
# To use physical hardware, replace "host" with something matching your hardware.
TARGET = tvm.target.target.micro("host")

# Use the AOT executor rather than graph or vm executors. Don't use unpacked API or C calling style.
EXECUTOR = Executor("aot")

if use_physical_hw:
    boards_file = pathlib.Path(tvm.micro.get_microtvm_template_projects("zephyr")) / "boards.json"
    with open(boards_file) as f:
        boards = json.load(f)
    BOARD = os.getenv("TVM_MICRO_BOARD", default="nucleo_l4r5zi")
    SERIAL = os.getenv("TVM_MICRO_SERIAL", default=None)
    TARGET = tvm.target.target.micro(boards[BOARD]["model"])

Compile the model

Now, we compile the model for the target:

with tvm.transform.PassContext(opt_level=3, config={"tir.disable_vectorize": True}):
    module = tvm.relay.build(
        relay_mod, target=TARGET, params=params, runtime=RUNTIME, executor=EXECUTOR
    )

Create a microTVM project

Now that we have the compiled model as an IRModule, we need to create a firmware project to use the compiled model with microTVM. To do this, we use Project API. We have defined CRT and Zephyr microTVM template projects which are used for x86 CPU and Zephyr boards respectively.

template_project_path = pathlib.Path(tvm.micro.get_microtvm_template_projects("crt"))
project_options = {}  # You can use options to provide platform-specific options through TVM.

if use_physical_hw:
    template_project_path = pathlib.Path(tvm.micro.get_microtvm_template_projects("zephyr"))
    project_options = {
        "project_type": "host_driven",
        "board": BOARD,
        "serial_number": SERIAL,
        "config_main_stack_size": 4096,
    }

temp_dir = tvm.contrib.utils.tempdir()
generated_project_dir = temp_dir / "project"
project = tvm.micro.generate_project(
    template_project_path, module, generated_project_dir, project_options
)

Build, flash and execute the model

Next, we build the microTVM project and flash it. Flash step is specific to physical microcontrollers and it is skipped if it is simulating a microcontroller via the host main.cc or if a Zephyr emulated board is selected as the target. Next, we define the labels for the model output and execute the model with a sample with expected value of 6 (label: left).

project.build()
project.flash()

labels = [
    "_silence_",
    "_unknown_",
    "yes",
    "no",
    "up",
    "down",
    "left",
    "right",
    "on",
    "off",
    "stop",
    "go",
]
with tvm.micro.Session(project.transport()) as session:
    aot_executor = tvm.runtime.executor.aot_executor.AotModule(session.create_aot_executor())
    sample = np.load(SAMPLE_PATH)
    aot_executor.get_input(INPUT_NAME).copyfrom(sample)
    aot_executor.run()
    result = aot_executor.get_output(0).numpy()
    print(f"Label is `{labels[np.argmax(result)]}` with index `{np.argmax(result)}`")

Label is `left` with index `6`