Method and apparatus for reducing computational complexity of convolutional neural networks

Abstract

A convolutional neural network (CNN) system for generating a classification for an input image is presented. The CNN system comprises circuitry running on clock cycles and configured to compute a product of two received values, and at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores instructions for the circuitry to derive a feature map based on at least the input image; puncture at least one selection among the feature map and a kernel by setting the value of an element at an index of the at least one selection to zero and cyclic shifting a puncture pattern to achieve a 1/d reduction in number of clock cycles, where d is an integer and puncture interval value >1. The feature map is convolved with the kernel to generate an output, and a classification of the input image is generated based on the output.