Based on the assumption that there exists a neural network that efficiently
represents a set of Boolean functions between all binary inputs and outputs, we
propose a process for developing and deploying neural networks whose weight
parameters, bias terms, input, and intermediate hidden layer output signals,
are all binary-valued, and require only basic bit logic for the feedforward
pass. The proposed Bitwise Neural Network (BNN) is especially suitable for
resource-constrained environments, since it replaces either floating or
fixed-point arithmetic with significantly more efficient bitwise operations.
Hence, the BNN requires for less spatial complexity, less memory bandwidth, and
less power consumption in hardware. In order to design such networks, we
propose to add a few training schemes, such as weight compression and noisy
backpropagation, which result in a bitwise network that performs almost as well
as its corresponding real-valued network. We test the proposed network on the
MNIST dataset, represented using binary features, and show that BNNs result in
competitive performance while offering dramatic computational savings.

通过提出一种基于二进制值的神经网络训练方法 (BNN)，实现了通过基本的比特逻辑实现神经网络的前向传递。在资源受限的环境中，BNN 可以取代浮点数运算，减少存储空间占用、内存带宽、以及硬件能耗。同时，我们提出了权重压缩和噪声反向传播等训练技术，生成功能基本与实数网络相当的 BNN。通过在 MNIST 数据集上进行实验，我们证明了 BNN 表现出竞争性的性能并节省大量计算资源。