# FactorizeNet: Progressive Depth Factorization for Efficient Network Architecture Exploration Under Quantization Constraints

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.14586 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.14586/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 30 Nov 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Do All MobileNets Quantize Poorly? Gaining Insights into the Effect of Quantization on Depthwise Separable Convolutional Networks Through the Eyes of Multi-scale Distributional Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.11849/) (2021)
- [Starting Positions Matter: A Study on Better Weight Initialization for Neural Network Quantization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.10463/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Depth factorization and quantization have emerged as two of the principal strategies for designing efficient deep convolutional neural network (CNN) architectures tailored for low-power inference on the edge. However, there is still little detailed understanding of how different depth factorization choices affect the final, trained distributions of each layer in a CNN, particularly in the situation of quantized weights and activations. In this study, we introduce a progressive depth factorization strategy for efficient CNN architecture exploration under quantization constraints. By algorithmically increasing the granularity of depth factorization in a progressive manner, the proposed strategy enables a fine-grained, low-level analysis of layer-wise distributions. Thus enabling the gain of in-depth, layer-level insights on efficiency-accuracy tradeoffs under fixed-precision quantization. Such a progressive depth factorization strategy also enables efficient identification of the optimal depth-factorized macroarchitecture design (which we will refer to here as FactorizeNet) based on the desired efficiency-accuracy requirements.