Patent ID: 7143072

Claim:
A method implemented on a computer of calculating values of neurons in a neural network that includes a plurality of layers of neurons, each of said layers having a plurality of sublayers of neurons, the value of a target neuron in a first layer being determined by an accumulation of products formed of the values of a plurality of source neurons in a second layer underlying said first layer, said source neurons forming, in a symbolic representation of the neural network, a parallelepiped in said second underlying layer of said neural network, weights specific to each of said source neurons of said parallelepiped being the same for all of the source neurons in a given sublayer of said underlying layer, said method comprising the following steps for calculating products determining said values of said target neurons of any sublayer of said network: storing in a weight register bank in said computer at least one group of weights that apply to a first sublayer of said source neurons to be used for determining said target neuron value; calculating successively the respective products of the values of said source neurons of said first sublayer and the weights associated therewith; storing said products relating to said source neurons of said first sublayer in a memory in said computer; accumulating the respective products obtained from said source neurons relating to said target neuron to form said target neuron value; and using said target neuron value by said neural network to analyze input data and produce an output in accordance with a neural network application.