论文标题
通过模拟近似乘数进行深度学习培训
Deep Learning Training with Simulated Approximate Multipliers
论文作者
论文摘要
本文通过模拟如何利用近似乘数来增强卷积神经网络(CNN)的训练性能。与确切的乘数相比,近似乘数在速度,功率和面积方面具有更好的性能。但是,近似乘数具有不准确性,该不准确是根据平均相对误差(MRE)定义的。为了评估近似乘数在增强CNN训练性能中的适用性,提出了近似乘数误差对CNN训练的影响的模拟。该论文表明,使用近似乘数进行CNN训练可以显着提高速度,功率和面积的性能,而成本对所达到的准确性产生的负面影响很小。此外,本文提出了一种混合训练方法,该方法减轻了对准确性的负面影响。使用提出的混合方法,训练可以开始使用近似乘数,然后切换到最后几个时期的精确乘数。使用这种方法,可以在训练阶段的很大一部分中获得近似乘数的性能优势。另一方面,通过将精确的乘数用于最后的训练时期,对准确性的负面影响会降低。
This paper presents by simulation how approximate multipliers can be utilized to enhance the training performance of convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Approximate multipliers have significantly better performance in terms of speed, power, and area compared to exact multipliers. However, approximate multipliers have an inaccuracy which is defined in terms of the Mean Relative Error (MRE). To assess the applicability of approximate multipliers in enhancing CNN training performance, a simulation for the impact of approximate multipliers error on CNN training is presented. The paper demonstrates that using approximate multipliers for CNN training can significantly enhance the performance in terms of speed, power, and area at the cost of a small negative impact on the achieved accuracy. Additionally, the paper proposes a hybrid training method which mitigates this negative impact on the accuracy. Using the proposed hybrid method, the training can start using approximate multipliers then switches to exact multipliers for the last few epochs. Using this method, the performance benefits of approximate multipliers in terms of speed, power, and area can be attained for a large portion of the training stage. On the other hand, the negative impact on the accuracy is diminished by using the exact multipliers for the last epochs of training.