[Blog] blog post for v0.3b release

docs/_posts/2020-05-08-finn-v03b-beta-is-released.md

+---
+layout: post
+title:  "FINN v0.3b (beta) is released"
+author: "Yaman Umuroglu"
+---
+
+We're happy to announce the v0.3b (beta) release of the FINN compiler.
+The full changelog is quite large as we've been working on a lot of exciting
+new features, but here is a summary:
+
+| <img src="https://xilinx.github.io/finn/img/cnv-mp-fc.jpg" width="450" height="500" align="center"/>|
+| :---:|
+| *[FINN-R](https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.10261) style hardware architecture for CNNs* |
+
+<b>Initial support for ConvNets and end-to-end notebook example.</b> The
+preliminary support for convolutions is now in place. Head over to the new
+<a href="https://github.com/Xilinx/finn/blob/staging/v0.3b/notebooks/end2end_example/cnv_end2end_example.ipynb">
+end-to-end notebook</a> to try out the end-to-end flow for convolutions
+and build the demonstrator for a simple binarized CNN on CIFAR-10.
+
+| <img src="https://xilinx.github.io/finn/img/parallel-speedup.png" width="450" height="500" align="center"/>|
+| :---:|
+| *HLS synthesis speedup by parallelization. Courtesy of @HenniOVP.* |
+
+<b>Parallel transformations.</b> When working with larger designs, HLS synthesis
+and simulation compile times can be quite long. Thanks to a contribution by
+@HenniOVP we now support multi-process parallelization several FINN transformations.
+You can read more about those <a href="https://github.com/Xilinx/finn/blob/staging/v0.3b/notebooks/advanced/1_custom_transformation_pass.ipynb">here</a>.
+
+| <img src="https://xilinx.github.io/finn/finn/img/mem_mode.png" width="450" height="500" align="center"/>|
+| :---:|
+| *Const and decoupled mem_modes for MVAUs.* |
+
+<b>Decoupled memory mode for MVAUs.</b> To have more control over how the weight
+memories are implemented, you can now specify the `mem_mode` and `ram_style`
+attributes when instantiating compute engines. Read more <a href="https://finn.readthedocs.io/en/latest/internals.html#streamingfclayer-mem-mode">here.</a>
+
+<b>Throughput testing and optimizations.</b> To do a quick assessment of the
+customized accelerators you build, we now support a throughput test mode that
+lets you benchmark the accelerator with a configurable number of samples.
+To get better utilization from the heterogeneous streaming architectures FINN
+builds, we have also introduced a FIFO insertion transformation.
+You can see these in action in the updated <a href="https://github.com/Xilinx/finn/blob/staging/v0.3b/notebooks/end2end_example/tfc_end2end_example.ipynb">
+TFC-w1a1 end2end notebook.</a>
+
+We have a slew of other smaller features, bugfixes and various other improvements.
+The release (tagged 0.3b) is now available on GitHub.
+We're continuously working to improve FINN in terms of layer, network and
+infrastructure.
+If you'd like to help out, please check out the <a href="https://github.com/Xilinx/finn/blob/staging/v0.3b/CONTRIBUTING.md">contribution guidelines</a> and
+share your ideas on the <a href="https://gitter.im/xilinx-finn/community">FINN Gitter channel</a>!