US Patent 12026478 Multiply accumulate (MAC) unit with split accumulator

In a multiply accumulate (MAC) unit, an accumulator may be implemented in two or more stages. For example, a first accumulator may accumulate products from the multiplier of the MAC unit, and a second accumulator may periodically accumulate the running total of the first accumulator. Each time the first accumulator's running total is accumulated by the second accumulator, the first accumulator may be initialized to begin a new accumulation period. In one embodiment, the number of values accumulated by the first accumulator within an accumulation period may be a user-adjustable parameter. In one embodiment, the bit width of the input of the second accumulator may be greater than the bit width of the output of the first accumulator. In another embodiment, an adder may be shared between the first and second accumulators, and a multiplexor may switch the accumulation operations between the first and second accumulators.