XIR - 1.3 English

Vitis AI User Guide (UG1414)

Document ID
UG1414
Release Date
2021-02-03
Version
1.3 English

XIR includes the Op, Tensor, Graph, and Subgraph libraries, which provide a clear and flexible representation of the computational graph. XIR has in-memory format and file format for different usage. The in-memory format XIR is a graph object and the file format is an xmodel. A graph object can be serialized to an xmodel while an xmodel can be deserialized to a graph object.

In the Op library, there is a well-defined set of operators to cover the popular deep learning frameworks, e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch and Caffe, and all of the built-in DPU operators. This enhances the expression ability and achieves one of the core goals, which is eliminating the difference between these frameworks and providing a unified representation for users and developers.

XIR also provides Python APIs named PyXIR, which enables Python users to fully access the XIR in a Python environment, e.g., co-develop and integrate users' Python projects with the current XIR-based tools without having to perform a huge amount of work to fix the gap between different languages.

Figure 1. XIR Based Flow

xir::Graph

Graph is the core component of the XIR. It obtains serveral significant APIs, e.g., the xir::Graph::serialize, xir::Graph::deserialize and xir::Graph::topological_sort.

The Graph is like a container, which maintains the Op as its vertex, and uses the producer-consumer relation as the edge.

xir::Op

Op in XIR is the instance of the operator definition either in XIR or extended from XIR. All Op instances can only be created or added by the Graph according to the predefined built-in/extended op definition library. The Op definition mainly includes the input arguments and intrinsic attributes.

Besides the intrinsic predefined attributes, an Op instance is also able to carry more extrinsic attributes by applying xir::Op::set_attr API. Each Op instance can only obtain one output tensor, but more than one fanout ops.

xir::Tensor

Tensor is another important class in XIR. Unlike other frameworks' tensor definition, XIR's Tensor is only a description of the data block it representes. The real data block is excluded from the Tensor.

The key attributes for Tensor is the data type and shape.

xir::Subgraph

XIR's Subgraph is a tree-like hierarchy, which divides a set of ops into several non-overlapping sets. The Graph's entire op set can be seen as the root. The Subgraph can be nested but it must be non-overlapping. The nested insiders must be the children of the outer one.