# neon backend¶

neon features highly optimized CPU (MKL) and GPU computational backends for fast matrix operations. Understanding how to work with backend is critical to creating custom layers or cost functions. In fact, the backend API is exposed, allowing direct access for any application.

In this guide, we will first demonstrate how to directly call the backend, and then introduce Op-Trees and neon’s automatic differentiation feature. These operations are used extensively for creating custom layers, costs, and metrics.

The neon backend is easily swappable, meaning that the same code will run for both the GPU and CPU backends.

## Directly calling the backend¶

To generate an MKL backend, we call

from neon.backends import gen_backend

be = gen_backend(backend='mkl')


The method gen_backend() takes several optional arguments (see the API for a full list).

The Tensor class is used to represent multidimensional arrays where each element is of a consistent datatype. We provide methods to instantiate and copy instances of this data structure, as well as initialize elements, reshape dimensions, and access metadata.

Let’s initialize a Tensor of zeros with shape (100,100).

from neon.backends.backend import Tensor

myTensor = be.zeros((100, 100))


There are also other ways of initializing a Tensor:

import numpy as np

# initialize a numpy array of zeros
array_of_zeros = np.zeros((100, 100))

# 1. array of zeros with the shape like the input array
myTensor = be.zeros_like(array_of_zeros)

# 2. initialize a tensor with same values as the input array
myTensor = be.array(array_of_zeros)

# 3. initialize an empty Tensor, then set elements to zero
myTensor = be.empty((100, 100))
myTensor[:] = 0

# 4. initialize an empty Tensor, then fill the elements to zero
myTensor = be.empty((100, 100))
myTensor.fill(0.0)

# 5. deep copy another Tensor
yourTensor = be.zeros((100, 100))
myTensor = yourTensor.copy(yourTensor)


To view the elements of a Tensor, you need to first copy into host memory as a numpy array via

myNumpyArray = myTensor.get()


The Tensor datatype supports all the operations you would expect from a multi-dimensional array:

• Fancy slicing (myTensor[:,1], myTensor[:, 3:10])
• Basic element-wise arithmetic (myTensor*yourTensor, myTensor+yourTensor, etc.)
• Transcendental functions (be.exp(myTensor), be.sqrt(myTensor))
• Logical operations (myTensor == yourTensor, myTensor > yourTensor)
• Dot product (be.dot(myTensor,yourTensor))
• Summary statistics (be.max(myTensor), be.mean(myTensor))

For a full list, see the API documentation.

Using these tools, we can construct, for example, the logistic function

f = 1/(1+be.exp(-1*myTensor))


The backend creates f as a graph representation of numerical operations (Op-Tree). The neon backend performs sequences of operations using a lazy evaluation scheme where operations are pushed onto an OpTree and only evaluated when an explicit assignment is made using Op-Tree syntax (optree[:]):

fval = be.empty((100, 100)) # allocate space for output
fval[:] = f # execute the op-tree


## Op-Trees¶

Op-tree (as in OpTreeNode class) is a graph representation of numerical operations. We are going to start by looking at a minimal example:

from neon.backends import gen_backend

be = gen_backend('cpu')
x0 = be.ones((2, 2), name='x0')
x1 = be.ones((2, 2), name='x1')
f = x0 + x1               # op-tree creation
f_val = be.empty((2, 2))  # output buffer allocation
f_val[:] = f              # execution

print(f)                  # print the op-tree tuple
print(f_val.get())        # get the device tensor


This prints:

({'shape': (2, 2), 'op': 'add'}, x0, x1) [[ 2.  2.]  [ 2.  2.]]


The tuple ({'shape': (2, 2), 'op': 'add'}, x0, x1) is the op-tree. There are two different types of nodes in an op-tree. The dict {‘shape’: (2, 2), ‘op’: ‘add’} is the “op”, containing the operations, properties of the operation (such as axis) and the shape of the output. The other two nodes are the “numeric node”, containing Tensor or constant (float, int).

### Relation between OpTreeNode and op-tree¶

• OpTreeNode is the class inherited from tuple. An OpTreeNode is a tuple of length 3. The first element is a dict specifying the operation, and the second and third elements specify the operands.
• From an op-tree’s tree perspective, think about the 3 elements as 3 nodes. The second and third element are the left and right child of the first element (the dict).

### Op-Tree Creation¶

An Op-Tree can be created in several ways:

1. Operator overload. Most of the common numerical operators between Tensor and OpTreeNode are overloaded. Operations between a Tensor and an OpTreeNode will produce an OpTreeNode. For example, if we have Tensors x1 and x2 and OpTreeNodes t1 and t2, we can create an OpTreeNode f by:

# f are OpTreeNode in the following example
f = x1 + x2 # Tensor + Tensor
f = x1 + t1 # Tensor + OpTreeNode
f = t1 + t2 # OpTreeNode + OpTreeNode

2. Backend functions. An Op-tree can be built by calling backend functions using syntax similar to numpy. For example:

f = ng.mean(x) # f is an optree

3. OpTreeNode.build(). This method is called internally in the first two cases. The build function does the type checking and appends the shape to the op_dict. When the first op is ‘assign’, the op-tree will be executed automatically.

OpTreeNode.build("add", a, b) # binary ops
OpTreeNode.build("sqrt", a, None, out=out_buffer) # unary ops

4. OpTreeNode’s init function. Lastly, we can build an op-tree from the constructor of the OpTreeNode class. This is usually called internally, giving us complete control of the contents of the OpTree. However, this approach does not do type checking or shape calculation, so tread carefully.

OpTreeNode(op_dict, a, b)


### Op-Tree Execution¶

Usually, the execution of an op-tree is triggered by assignment:

f_val[:] = f


Here is what happens under the hood:

1. An new op-tree with assignment is built based on f:

OpTreeNode.build("assign", f_val, f)

2. Then this new op-tree is executed:

OpTreeNode.build("assign", f_val, f).execute()

3. The corresponding backend’s execute function will be called and the value of f will be written to Tensor f_val.

### Property of the op-tree¶

The OpTreeNode class is inherited from tuple, making OpTreeNode efficient and immutable. If we want to modify the op-tree (for example swapping all instance of Tensor x1 to x2), consider modifying the post-order stack (which is a list) of the optree directly.

An op-tree is a binary tree. It has the following properties:

• Except for the root node, every node has exactly one parent.
• All leaf nodes are “numeric nodes” and all internal nodes are “op nodes”.
• An “op node” can have zero, one or two children, depending on whether it is a zero-operand, unary or binary operation.

## Automatic differentiation¶

Automatic differentiation can be achieved given an op-tree (see Op-Tree). In the following examples, we will explain how to get differentiation from a compound operation or from a layer that does batch normalization.

### Example: use autodiff based on an op-tree¶

Construct an op-tree from a compound operation.

from neon.backends import gen_backend, Autodiff
import numpy as np
be = gen_backend('nervanagpu')
x0 = be.array(np.ones((3, 3)) * 1., name='x0')
x1 = be.array(np.ones((3, 3)) * 2., name='x1')
print '# example 0'
f = x0 * x0 + x0 * x1


Construct an Autodiff object using the op-tree

ad = Autodiff(op_tree=f, be=be, next_error=None)
print ad.get_grad_asnumpyarray([x0, x1]) # result is [2 * x0 + x1, x0]


If an op-tree is obtained from a forward propagation process:

# fprop optree
# - different from theano, we need explicit tensors to build the optree
f = be.tanh((x0 * x1) + (x0 / x1))
# Create Autodiff object
# - the object will be memoized and reused, so it's safe to call Autodiff on
#   the same optree multiple times
# - when next_error is None, it will be set to be.ones() of the output shape,
#   in neon, next_error is set to the next layer's back prop error


The gradient with respect to certain variables can be called from an Autodiff object

# print gradient optree
# - in the printed result, the unnamed tensor is ones() of the output shape


Autodiff provides a few other functions:

• back_prop_grad: back prop gradients to the specified buffers, most efficient (shall be used in most cases with pre-allocated memory)
• get_grad_op_tree: get the gradient optrees
• get_grad_tensor: get the gradient tensors, it will allocate device memory
• get_grad_asnumpyarray: get gradients as numpy array, it will allocate host memory

Here is an example of Autodiff applied to a dynamically generated optree:

x0 = be.array(np.random.randint(10, size=(3, 3)), name='x0')
def my_loop(x):
y = be.zeros(OpTreeNode.shape(x), name='tensor-zero')
for _ in range(x.get()[0, 0]):
y = y + x
return y
def my_condition(x):
if x.get()[0, 0] % 2 == 0:
return be.sig(x)
else:
return be.tanh(x)
f = my_loop(x0) + my_condition(x0)