【Press Release】LeapMind Acquires Patents for Extremely Low Bit Quantization Technology

June 22, 2021 - LeapMind Inc. (Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Soichi Matsuda), a creator of the standard in edge AI today announced that it has been granted two patents for its extremely low bit quantization technology. “Two patents we acquired are one of the fundamental technologies supporting Efficiera, an ultra-low power AI inference accelerator IP that we developed and provided.” Commented Hiroyuki Tokunaga, CTO of LeapMind and one of the inventors of patents acquired. “We continue to develop related technologies and file patent applications.”

Patent number: No. 6885645 Date of patent registration: May 17, 2021 Title of the invention: Neural network processing units, neural network processing method, and neural network processing program, neural network processing program Patentee: LeapMind Inc.

Patent Summary

This patent relates to a technology that minimizes the accuracy degradation associated with low bit rates, which is an issue in extremely low bit quantization technology. This is one of the methods of quantizing multi-bit data such as images, in which the multi-bit elements in the data are replaced by quantized vectors instead of simply being reduced to lower bits. In particular, the use of this technology in the input layer, which is the first stage of a deep neural network, can be highly effective.

Patent number: No. 6886747 Patent registration date: May 19, 2021 Title of the invention: Neural network processing units, neural network processing method, and neural network processing program, neural network processing program Patentee: LeapMind Inc.

Patent Summary

The quantization operation is a comparison between the input value and the threshold value. Therefore, arbitrary monotonic functions between convolution and quantization operations can eventually be converted into threshold changes, which can be performed efficiently.

About LeapMind

LeapMind Inc. was founded in 2012 with the corporate philosophy of "bringing new devices that use machine learning to the world". Total investment in LeapMind to date has reached 4.99 billion yen (as of May 2021). The company's strength is in extremely low bit quantization for compact deep learning solutions. It has a proven track record of achievement with over 150 companies, centered in manufacturing including the automobile industry. It is also developing its Efficiera semiconductor IP, based on its experience in the development of both software and hardware.

Head office: Shibuya Dogenzaka Sky Building 5F, 28-1 Maruyama-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0044 Representative: Soichi Matsuda, CEO Established: December 2012 URL：https://leapmind.io/en/

LeapMind, Efficiera and logo are trademarks or regidtered trademarks of LeapMind Inc. The infomation in the press release is current as of the date of announcement.

Media Contact Marketing Communication Division, Public Relations Officer, LeapMind Inc. Phone: 813-6696-6267 Email: pr@leapmind.io