Recursive Binary Neural Network Learning Model with 2-bit/weight Storage Requirement

This paper presents a storage-efficient learning model titled Recursive Binary Neural Networks for embedded and mobile devices having a limited amount of on-chip data storage such as hundreds of kilo-Bytes. The main idea of the proposed model is to recursively recycle data storage of weights (parameters) during training. This enables a device with a given storage constraint to train and instantiate a neural network classifier with a larger number of weights on a chip, achieving better classification accuracy. Such efficient use of on-chip storage reduces off-chip storage accesses, improving energy-efficiency and speed of training. We verified the proposed training model with deep and convolutional neural network classifiers on the MNIST and voice activity detection benchmarks. For the deep neural network, our model achieves data storage requirement of as low as 2 bits/weight, whereas the conventional binary neural network learning models require data storage of 8 to 32 bits/weight. With the same amount of data storage, our model can train a bigger network having more weights, achieving 1% less test error than the conventional binary neural network learning model. To achieve the similar classification error, the conventional binary neural network model requires 4× more data storage for weights than our proposed model. For the convolution neural network classifier, the proposed model achieves 2.4% less test error for the same on-chip storage or 6× storage savings to achieve the similar accuracy.