How to Implement Custom GPU Operations

To enable operations not supported by OpenVINO™ out of the box, you may need an extension for OpenVINO operation set, and a custom kernel for the device you will target. This article describes custom kernel support for the GPU device.

The GPU codepath abstracts many details about OpenCL. You need to provide the kernel code in OpenCL C and an XML configuration file that connects the kernel and its parameters to the parameters of the operation.

There are two options for using the custom operation configuration file:

  • Include a section with your kernels into the automatically-loaded <lib_path>/cldnn_global_custom_kernels/cldnn_global_custom_kernels.xml file.

  • Call the ov::Core::set_property() method from your application with the "CONFIG_FILE" key and the configuration file name as a value before loading the network that uses custom operations to the plugin:

    core = ov.Core()
    core.set_property("GPU", {"CONFIG_FILE": "<path_to_the_xml_file>"})
    ov::Core core;
    // Load GPU Extensions
    core.set_property("GPU", {{ CONFIG_KEY(CONFIG_FILE), "<path_to_the_xml_file>" }});

All OpenVINO samples, except the trivial hello_classification, and most Open Model Zoo demos feature a dedicated command-line option -c to load custom kernels. For example, to load custom operations for the classification sample, run the command below:

$ ./classification_sample -m <path_to_model>/bvlc_alexnet_fp16.xml -i ./validation_set/daily/227x227/apron.bmp -d GPU
-c <absolute_path_to_config>/custom_layer_example.xml

Configuration File Format

The configuration file is expected to follow the .xml file structure with a node of the type CustomLayer for every custom operation you provide.

The definitions described in the sections below use the following notations:

Notation

Description

(0/1)

Can have zero or one instance of this node or attribute

Must have only one instance of this node or attribute

(0+)

Can have any number of instances of this node or attribute

(1+)

Can have one or more instances of this node or attribute

CustomLayer Node and Sub-Node Structure

The CustomLayer node contains the entire configuration for a single custom operation.

Attribute Name

#

Description

name

The name of the operation type to be used. This name should be identical to the type used in the IR.

type

Must be SimpleGPU .

version

Must be 1 .

Sub-nodes: Kernel (1), Buffers (1), CompilerOptions (0+), WorkSizes (0/1)

Kernel Node and Sub-Node Structure

The Kernel node contains all kernel source code configuration.

Sub-nodes: Source (1+), Define (0+)

Source Node and Sub-Node Structure

The Source node points to a single OpenCL source file.

Attribute Name

#

Description

filename

Name of the file containing OpenCL source code. The path is relative to your executable. Multiple source nodes will have their sources concatenated in order.

Sub-nodes: None

Define Node and Sub-Node Structure

The Define node configures a single #define instruction to be added to the sources during compilation (JIT).

Attribute Name

#

Description

name

The name of the defined JIT. For static constants, this can include the value as well, which is taken as a string.

param

(0/1)

This parameter value is used as the value of this JIT definition.

type

(0/1)

The parameter type. Accepted values: int , float , and int[] , float[] for arrays.

default

(0/1)

The default value to be used if the specified parameters are missing from the operation in the OpenVINO IR.

Sub-nodes: None

The resulting JIT has the following form: #define [name] [type] [value/default].

Buffers Node and Sub-Node Structure

The Buffers node configures all input/output buffers for the OpenCL entry function. No buffers node structure exists.

Sub-nodes: Data (0+), Tensor (1+)

Data Node and Sub-Node Structure

The Data node configures a single input with static data, for example, weights or biases.

Attribute Name

#

Description

name

Name of a blob attached to an operation in the OpenVINO IR.

arg-index

0-based index in the entry function arguments to be bound to.

Sub-nodes: None

Tensor Node and Sub-Node Structure

The Tensor node configures a single input or output tensor.

Attribute Name

#

Description

arg-index

0-based index in the entry function arguments to be bound to.

type

input or output

port-index

0-based index in the operation input/output ports in the OpenVINO IR

format

(0/1)

Data layout declaration for the tensor. Accepted values: BFYX , BYXF , YXFB , FYXB , and same values in all lowercase. Default value: BFYX.

CompilerOptions Node and Sub-Node Structure

The CompilerOptions node configures the compilation flags for the OpenCL sources.

Attribute Name

#

Description

options

Options string to be passed to the OpenCL compiler

Sub-nodes: None

WorkSizes Node and Sub-Node Structure

The WorkSizes node configures the global/local work sizes to be used when queuing an OpenCL program for execution.

Attribute Name

#

Description

global local

(0/1) (0/1)

An array of up to three integers or formulas for defining OpenCL work-sizes to be used during execution. The formulas can use the values of the B,F,Y,X dimensions and contain the operators: +,-,/,*,%. All operators are evaluated in integer arithmetic. Default value: global=”B\*F\*Y\*X” local=””

dim

(0/1)

A tensor to take the work-size from. Accepted values: input N , output , where N is an index of input tensor starting with 0. Default value: output

Sub-nodes: None

Example Configuration File

The following code sample provides an example configuration file in XML format. For information on the configuration file structure, see the Configuration File Format.

<CustomLayer name="ReLU" type="SimpleGPU" version="1">
  <Kernel entry="example_relu_kernel">
    <Source filename="custom_layer_kernel.cl"/>
    <Define name="neg_slope" type="float" param="negative_slope" default="0.0"/>
  </Kernel>
  <Buffers>
    <Tensor arg-index="0" type="input" port-index="0" format="BFYX"/>
    <Tensor arg-index="1" type="output" port-index="0" format="BFYX"/>
  </Buffers>
  <CompilerOptions options="-cl-mad-enable"/>
  <WorkSizes global="X,Y,B*F"/>
</CustomLayer>

Built-In Definitions for Custom Layers

The following table includes definitions that are attached before user sources.

For an example, see Example Kernel.

Name

Value

NUM_INPUTS

Number of the input tensors bound to this kernel

GLOBAL_WORKSIZE

An array of global work sizes used to execute this kernel

GLOBAL_WORKSIZE_SIZE

The size of the GLOBAL_WORKSIZE array

LOCAL_WORKSIZE

An array of local work sizes used to execute this kernel

LOCAL_WORKSIZE_SIZE

The size of the LOCAL_WORKSIZE array

<TENSOR>_DIMS

An array of the tensor dimension sizes. Always ordered as BFYX

<TENSOR>_DIMS_SIZE

The size of the <TENSOR>_DIMS array.

<TENSOR>_TYPE

The datatype of the tensor: float , half , or char

<TENSOR>_FORMAT_<TENSOR_FORMAT>

The format of the tensor, BFYX, BYXF, YXFB , FYXB, or ANY. The format is concatenated to the defined name. You can use the tensor format to define codepaths in your code with #ifdef/#endif .

<TENSOR>_LOWER_PADDING

An array of padding elements used for the tensor dimensions before they start. Always ordered as BFYX.

<TENSOR>_LOWER_PADDING_SIZE

The size of the <TENSOR>_LOWER_PADDING array

<TENSOR>_UPPER_PADDING

An array of padding elements used for the tensor dimensions after they end. Always ordered as BFYX.

<TENSOR>_UPPER_PADDING_SIZE

The size of the <TENSOR>_UPPER_PADDING array

<TENSOR>_PITCHES

The offset (in elements) between adjacent elements in each dimension. Always ordered as BFYX.

<TENSOR>_PITCHES_SIZE

The size of the <TENSOR>_PITCHES array

<TENSOR>_OFFSET

The number of elements from the start of the tensor to the first valid element, bypassing the lower padding.

All <TENSOR> values are automatically defined for every tensor bound to this operation, such as INPUT0, INPUT1, and OUTPUT0, as shown in the following example:

#define INPUT0_DIMS_SIZE 4
#define INPUT0_DIMS (int []){ 1,96,55,55, }

Example Kernel

#pragma OPENCL EXTENSION cl_khr_fp16 : enable
__kernel void example_relu_kernel(
    const __global INPUT0_TYPE*  input0,
          __global OUTPUT0_TYPE* output)
{
    const uint idx  = get_global_id(0);
    const uint idy  = get_global_id(1);
    const uint idbf = get_global_id(2); // batches*features, as OpenCL supports 3D nd-ranges only
    const uint feature = idbf % OUTPUT0_DIMS[1];
    const uint batch   = idbf / OUTPUT0_DIMS[1];
    //notice that pitches are in elements, not in bytes!
    const uint in_id  = batch*INPUT0_PITCHES[0] + feature*INPUT0_PITCHES[1]   + idy*INPUT0_PITCHES[2]  + idx*INPUT0_PITCHES[3]  + INPUT0_OFFSET;
    const uint out_id = batch*OUTPUT0_PITCHES[0] + feature*OUTPUT0_PITCHES[1]  + idy*OUTPUT0_PITCHES[2]  + idx*OUTPUT0_PITCHES[3]  + OUTPUT0_OFFSET;

    INPUT0_TYPE value = input0[in_id];
    // neg_slope (which is non-zero for leaky ReLU) is put automatically as #define, refer to the config xml
    output[out_id] = value < 0 ? value * neg_slope : value;
}

Note

As described in the previous section, all items such as the INPUT0_TYPE are actually defined as OpenCL (pre-)compiler inputs by OpenVINO for efficiency reasons. See the Debugging Tips below for information on debugging the results.

Debugging Tips

Using ``printf`` in the OpenCL™ Kernels. To debug the specific values, use printf in your kernels. However, be careful not to output excessively, which could generate too much data. The printf output is typical, so your output can be truncated to fit the buffer. Also, because of buffering, you actually get an entire buffer of output when the execution ends.

For more information, refer to the printf Function.