3. microTVM Ahead-of-Time (AOT) Compilation

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.

Install microTVM Python dependencies

TVM does not include a package for Python serial communication, so we must install one before using microTVM. We will also need TFLite to load models.

%%shell
pip install pyserial==3.5 tflite==2.1

import os

# By default, this tutorial runs on x86 CPU using TVM's C runtime. If you would like
# to run on real Zephyr hardware, you must export the `TVM_MICRO_USE_HW` environment
# variable. Otherwise (if you are using the C runtime), you can skip installing
# Zephyr. It takes ~20 minutes to install Zephyr.
use_physical_hw = bool(os.getenv("TVM_MICRO_USE_HW"))

Install Zephyr

%%shell
# Install west and ninja
python3 -m pip install west
apt-get install -y ninja-build

# Install ZephyrProject
ZEPHYR_PROJECT_PATH="/content/zephyrproject"
export ZEPHYR_BASE=${ZEPHYR_PROJECT_PATH}/zephyr
west init ${ZEPHYR_PROJECT_PATH}
cd ${ZEPHYR_BASE}
git checkout v3.2-branch
cd ..
west update
west zephyr-export
chmod -R o+w ${ZEPHYR_PROJECT_PATH}

# Install Zephyr SDK
cd /content
ZEPHYR_SDK_VERSION="0.15.2"
wget "https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/sdk-ng/releases/download/v${ZEPHYR_SDK_VERSION}/zephyr-sdk-${ZEPHYR_SDK_VERSION}_linux-x86_64.tar.gz"
tar xvf "zephyr-sdk-${ZEPHYR_SDK_VERSION}_linux-x86_64.tar.gz"
mv "zephyr-sdk-${ZEPHYR_SDK_VERSION}" zephyr-sdk
rm "zephyr-sdk-${ZEPHYR_SDK_VERSION}_linux-x86_64.tar.gz"

# Install python dependencies
python3 -m pip install -r "${ZEPHYR_BASE}/scripts/requirements.txt"

Import Python dependencies

import numpy as np
import pathlib
import json

import tvm
from tvm import relay
import tvm.micro.testing
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.

MODEL_URL = "https://github.com/mlcommons/tiny/raw/bceb91c5ad2e2deb295547d81505721d3a87d578/benchmark/training/keyword_spotting/trained_models/kws_ref_model.tflite"
MODEL_PATH = download_testdata(MODEL_URL, "kws_ref_model.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 change BOARD to supported Zephyr board.

# 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.micro.testing.get_target("crt")

# 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:
    BOARD = os.getenv("TVM_MICRO_BOARD", default="nucleo_l4r5zi")
    SERIAL = os.getenv("TVM_MICRO_SERIAL", default=None)
    TARGET = tvm.micro.testing.get_target("zephyr", BOARD)

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,
        "zephyr_base": os.getenv("ZEPHYR_BASE", default="/content/zephyrproject/zephyr"),
    }

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`