Score: 5

hls4ml: A Flexible, Open-Source Platform for Deep Learning Acceleration on Reconfigurable Hardware

Published: December 1, 2025 | arXiv ID: 2512.01463v1

By: Jan-Frederik Schulte , Benjamin Ramhorst , Chang Sun and more

BigTech Affiliations: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Siemens University of Washington

Potential Business Impact:

Makes smart computer programs run super fast.

Business Areas:
Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) Hardware

We present hls4ml, a free and open-source platform that translates machine learning (ML) models from modern deep learning frameworks into high-level synthesis (HLS) code that can be integrated into full designs for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) or application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). With its flexible and modular design, hls4ml supports a large number of deep learning frameworks and can target HLS compilers from several vendors, including Vitis HLS, Intel oneAPI and Catapult HLS. Together with a wider eco-system for software-hardware co-design, hls4ml has enabled the acceleration of ML inference in a wide range of commercial and scientific applications where low latency, resource usage, and power consumption are critical. In this paper, we describe the structure and functionality of the hls4ml platform. The overarching design considerations for the generated HLS code are discussed, together with selected performance results.

Country of Origin
🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇩🇪 🇹🇼 🇨🇭 Taiwan, Province of China, United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland

Repos / Data Links

Page Count
32 pages

Category
Computer Science:
Hardware Architecture