Deep Learning Training with Simulated Approximate Multipliers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
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.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".