Efficient matrix data format applicable for artificial neural network

Abstract

Many computing systems process data organized in a matrix format. For example, artificial neural networks (ANNs) perform numerous computations on data organized into matrices using conventional matrix arithmetic operations. One such operation, which is commonly performed, is the transpose operation. Additionally, many such systems need to process many matrices and/or matrices that are large in size. For sparse matrices that hold few significant values and many values that can be ignored, transmitting and processing all the values in such matrices is wasteful. Thus, techniques are introduced for storing a sparse matrix in a compressed format that allows for a matrix transpose operation to be performed on the compressed matrix without having to first decompress the compressed matrix. By utilizing the introduced techniques, more matrix operations can be performed than conventional systems.