Embeddings Are Overpriced? A Frozen 16 MB Vocabulary for Small and Ternary Language Models
arXiv:2610.22428v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In a small language model the vocabulary is the single largest part. In Gemma 3 270M the embedding table holds 168M of 268M parameters, and because quantisation methods leave the embedding in 16-bit, it is also most of the file once the rest of the mod