BCNN: A Binary CNN with All Matrix Ops Quantized to 1 Bit Precision

Abstract: This paper describes a CNN where all CNN style 2D convolution operations that lower to matrix matrix multiplication are fully binary. The network is derived from a common building block structure that is consistent with a constructive proof outline showing that binary neural networks are universal function approximators. 71.24% top 1 accuracy on the 2012 ImageNet validation set was achieved with a 2 step training procedure and implementation strategies optimized for binary operands are provided.