ERDSE: efficient reinforcement learning based design space exploration method for CNN accelerator on resource limited platform

•ERDSE is a RL based DSE method for the complex design space of CNN accelerator.•Off policy strategy is applied to decouple sampl ing phase and learning phase of RL.•Sampling phase and learning phase are separately refined to improve the efficiency.•Noise disturbance utilized in s ampl ing phase can promote the exploration ability.•Maximum return approximate d gradient enhances sample utilization of learning phase.