Combining Aggregated Attention and Transformer Architecture for Accurate and Efficient Performance of Spiking Neural Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces SAFormer, a novel architecture that combines the low-power benefits of Spiking Neural Networks with the high performance of Transformers through a simplified attention mechanism and enhanced feature extraction.

Contribution

The paper proposes the Spike Aggregated Self-Attention mechanism and a Depthwise Convolution Module to effectively integrate SNNs with Transformers, reducing energy consumption while improving accuracy.

Findings

SAFormer outperforms state-of-the-art SNNs in accuracy

SAFormer reduces energy consumption significantly

The model demonstrates effective low-power, high-performance capabilities

Abstract

Spiking Neural Networks have attracted significant attention in recent years due to their distinctive low-power characteristics. Meanwhile, Transformer models, known for their powerful self-attention mechanisms and parallel processing capabilities, have demonstrated exceptional performance across various domains, including natural language processing and computer vision. Despite the significant advantages of both SNNs and Transformers, directly combining the low-power benefits of SNNs with the high performance of Transformers remains challenging. Specifically, while the sparse computing mode of SNNs contributes to reduced energy consumption, traditional attention mechanisms depend on dense matrix computations and complex softmax operations. This reliance poses significant challenges for effective execution in low-power scenarios. Given the tremendous success of Transformers in deep learning, it is a necessary step to explore the integration of SNNs and Transformers to harness the strengths of both. In this paper, we propose a novel model architecture, Spike Aggregation Transformer (SAFormer), that integrates the low-power characteristics of SNNs with the high-performance advantages of Transformer models. The core contribution of SAFormer lies in the design of the Spike Aggregated Self-Attention (SASA) mechanism, which significantly simplifies the computation process by calculating attention weights using only the spike matrices query and key, thereby effectively reducing energy consumption. Additionally, we introduce a Depthwise Convolution Module (DWC) to enhance the feature extraction capabilities, further improving overall accuracy. We evaluated and demonstrated that SAFormer outperforms state-of-the-art SNNs in both accuracy and energy consumption, highlighting its significant advantages in low-power and high-performance computing.