Integration guide

This document describes how to integrate the Arm NN Android NNAPI driver into an Android source tree.

Prerequisites

Android source tree for Android Q (we have tested against Android Q version 10.0.0_r39), in the directory <ANDROID_ROOT>
Android source tree for Android R (we have tested against Android R version 11.0.0_r3), in the directory <ANDROID_ROOT>
Android source tree for Android S (we have tested against Android S version 12.0.0_r1), in the directory <ANDROID_ROOT>
Android source tree for Android T (we have tested against Android T pre-release tag - TP1A.220624.003), in the directory <ANDROID_ROOT>
Mali OpenCL driver integrated into the Android source tree

Procedure

Place this source directory at <ANDROID_ROOT>/vendor/arm/android-nn-driver
Run setup.sh
Update the Android build environment to add the Arm NN driver. This ensures that the driver service is built and copied to the system/vendor/bin/hw directory in the Android image. To update the build environment, add to the contents of the variable PRODUCT_PACKAGES within the device-specific makefile that is located in the <ANDROID_ROOT>/device/<manufacturer>/<product> directory. This file is normally called device.mk:

Android.mk contains the module definition of all versions (1.1, 1.2 and 1.3) of the Arm NN driver.

For Android Q, a new version of the NN API is available (1.2), thus the following should be added to device.mk instead:

PRODUCT_PACKAGES += android.hardware.neuralnetworks@1.2-service-armnn

For Android R, S and T, new version of the NN API is available (1.3), thus the following should be added to device.mk instead:

PRODUCT_PACKAGES += android.hardware.neuralnetworks@1.3-service-armnn

Similarly, the Neon, CL or Reference backend can be enabled/disabled by setting ARMNN_COMPUTE_CL_ENABLE, ARMNN_COMPUTE_NEON_ENABLE or ARMNN_REF_ENABLE in device.mk:

ARMNN_COMPUTE_CL_ENABLE := 1

For all Android versions the vendor manifest.xml requires the Neural Network HAL information. For Android Q use HAL version 1.2 as below. For later Android versions substitute 1.3 where necessary.

<hal format="hidl">
    <name>android.hardware.neuralnetworks</name>
    <transport>hwbinder</transport>
    <version>1.2</version>
    <interface>
        <name>IDevice</name>
        <instance>armnn</instance>
    </interface>
    <fqname>@1.2::IDevice/armnn</fqname>
</hal>

Build Android as normal (https://source.android.com/setup/build/building)
To confirm that the Arm NN driver has been built, check for the driver service executable at

Android Q

/out/target/product//vendor/bin/hw

Testing

Run the Arm NN driver service executable in the background. Use the corresponding version of the driver for the Android version you are running. i.e android.hardware.neuralnetworks@1.2-service-armnn for Android Q and android.hardware.neuralnetworks@1.3-service-armnn for Android R, S and T

It is also possible to use a specific backend by using the -c option.
The following is an example of using the CpuAcc backend for Android Q:
adb shell /system/vendor/bin/hw/android.hardware.neuralnetworks@1.2-service-armnn -c CpuAcc &

Run some code that exercises the Android Neural Networks API, for example Android's NeuralNetworksTest unit tests (note this is an optional component that must be built).

adb shell /data/nativetest/NeuralNetworksTest_static/NeuralNetworksTest_static > NeuralNetworkTest.log

To confirm that the Arm NN driver is being used to service the Android Neural Networks API requests, check for messages in logcat with the ArmnnDriver tag. Please note that you need to add ARMNN_DRIVER_DEBUG := 1 to the 'device-vendor.mk' for the logcat to be visible.

Using the GPU tuner

The GPU tuner is a feature of the Compute Library that finds optimum values for GPU acceleration tuning parameters. There are three levels of tuning: exhaustive, normal and rapid. Exhaustive means that all lws values are tested. Normal means that a reduced number of lws values are tested, but that generally is sufficient to have a performance close enough to the exhaustive approach. Rapid means that only 3 lws values should be tested for each kernel. The recommended way of using it with Arm NN is to generate the tuning data during development of the Android image for a device, and use it in read-only mode during normal operation:

Run the Arm NN driver service executable in tuning mode. The path to the tuning data must be writable by the service. The following examples assume that the 1.2 version of the driver is being used:

adb shell /system/vendor/bin/hw/android.hardware.neuralnetworks@1.2-service-armnn --cl-tuned-parameters-file <PATH_TO_TUNING_DATA> --cl-tuned-parameters-mode UpdateTunedParameters --cl-tuning-level exhaustive &

Run a representative set of Android NNAPI testing loads. In this mode of operation, each NNAPI workload will be slow the first time it is executed, as the tuning parameters are being selected. Subsequent executions will use the tuning data which has been generated.
Stop the service.
Deploy the tuned parameters file to a location readable by the Arm NN driver service (for example, to a location within /vendor/etc).
During normal operation, pass the location of the tuning data to the driver service (this would normally be done by passing arguments via Android init in the service .rc definition):

adb shell /system/vendor/bin/hw/android.hardware.neuralnetworks@1.2-service-armnn --cl-tuned-parameters-file <PATH_TO_TUNING_DATA> &

Specifying the Capabilities for the Driver

The Android NNAPI framework specifies a means for a Driver to specify its Capabilities. These are relevant in situations where there are multiple drivers on a device and the NNAPI needs to choose one to use for a model. The Android NNAPI documentation gives an overview of them and how they're used at https://source.android.com/docs/core/interaction/neural-networks

These values will be hardware dependent and, as we can't know how any specific hardware is configured and we have no idea of the kind of values that the creators of other drivers might use, we leave it up to the Integrator to specify the values. The Android documentation linked above also provides some guidelines on measuring performance when generating these values.

As the Arm NN driver service initialises it will look for system properties containing the performance values to return when the NNAPI service requests the drivers Capabilities. The properties must all be 32-bit Float values and specify execution performance as well as power usage (in some circumstances Android may prefer low power consumption over high performance).

As each new HAL version was introduced the number of properties increased. The following is a list of the system properties that are looked for when the driver starts for each HAL version.

HAL 1.0

Initially the HAL 1.0 service only supported Float 32 and Quantized int8.

ArmNN.float32Performance.execTime
ArmNN.float32Performance.powerUsage
ArmNN.quantized8Performance.execTime
ArmNN.quantized8Performance.powerUsage

HAL 1.1

HAL 1.1 added a performance setting for relaxedFloat32toFloat16Performance.

ArmNN.float32Performance.execTime
ArmNN.float32Performance.powerUsage
ArmNN.quantized8Performance.execTime
ArmNN.quantized8Performance.powerUsage
ArmNN.relaxedFloat32toFloat16Performance.execTime
ArmNN.relaxedFloat32toFloat16Performance.powerUsage

HAL 1.2

HAL 1.2 added support for a number of new operand types.

ArmNN.relaxedFloat32toFloat16Performance.execTime
ArmNN.relaxedFloat32toFloat16Performance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorFloat32Performance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorFloat32Performance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeFloat32Performance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeFloat32Performance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorFloat16Performance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorFloat16Performance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeFloat16Performance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeFloat16Performance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8AsymmPerformance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8AsymmPerformance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant16SymmPerformance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant16SymmPerformance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8SymmPerformance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8SymmPerformance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8SymmPerChannelPerformance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8SymmPerChannelPerformance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorInt32Performance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorInt32Performance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeInt32Performance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeInt32Performance.powerUsage

HAL 1.3

HAL 1.3 added support for the control flow operations If and While. Please note ArmNN does not currently support If or While and until it does ignoring these system properties is appropriate.

ArmNN.relaxedFloat32toFloat16Performance.powerUsage
ArmNN.relaxedFloat32toFloat16Performance.powerUsage
ArmNN.ifPerformance.execTime
ArmNN.ifPerformance.powerUsage
ArmNN.whilePerformance.execTime
ArmNN.whilePerformance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorFloat32Performance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorFloat32Performance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeFloat32Performance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeFloat32Performance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorFloat16Performance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorFloat16Performance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeFloat16Performance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeFloat16Performance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8AsymmPerformance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8AsymmPerformance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8AsymmSignedPerformance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8AsymmSignedPerformance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant16SymmPerformance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant16SymmPerformance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8SymmPerformance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8SymmPerformance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8SymmPerChannelPerformance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorQuant8SymmPerChannelPerformance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeTensorInt32Performance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeTensorInt32Performance.powerUsage
Armnn.operandTypeInt32Performance.execTime
Armnn.operandTypeInt32Performance.powerUsage

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