RUNTIME RECONFIGURABLE COMPRESSION FORMAT CONVERSION WITH BIT-PLANE GRANULARITY

A runtime bit-plane data-format optimizer for a processing element includes a sparsity-detector and a compression-converter. The sparsity-detector selects a bit-plane compression-conversion format during a runtime of the processing element using a performance model that is based on a first sparsity pattern of first bit-plane data stored in a memory exterior to the processing element and a second sparsity pattern of second bit-plane data that is to be stored in a memory within the processing element. The second sparsity pattern is based on a runtime configuration of the processing element. The first bit-plane data is stored using a first bit-plane compression format and the bit-plane second data is to be stored using a second bit-plane compression format. The compression-conversion circuit converts the first bit-plane compression format of the first data to be the second bit-plane compression format of the second data.