Patent Document ID: 10073816
Application ID: 15655814
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for calculating a contraction of tensors TX and TY using a native tensor processor; wherein the contraction of tensors TX and TY is characterized by an equivalent matrix multiplication X(l,n)×Y(n,m)=Z(l,m), where X is an unfolded matrix for tensor TX and Y is an unfolded matrix for tensor TY, and l=1. .. L and m=1. .. M are free indices and n=1. .. N is a contraction index; and the native tensor processor comprises a distribution section, a processing section and a collection section, the processing section comprising a plurality of atomic processing elements (APEs) that (a) calculate outer products α×β where α is an ι×1 column vector and β is a 1×φ row vector and (b) accumulate the outer products α×β over the contraction index n; the method comprising: partitioning the matrix multiplication X×Y into a set of component matrix multiplications A×B based on a sum of outer products, the partitioning implemented by a combination of (a) hardware parallelism in the distribution and collection sections, (b) time division multiplexing (TDM), and (c) accumulation of the outer products α×β by the APEs; calculating the component matrix multiplications A×B=C using the APEs; and combining the component products C into the product Z=X×Y.