Abstract
Approximate circuits with relaxed requirements on functional correctness play an important role in the development of resource-efficient computer systems. Designing approximate circuits is a very complex and time-demanding process trying to find optimal trade-offs between the approximation error and resource savings. In this paper, we present ADAC—a novel framework for automated design of approximate arithmetic circuits. ADAC integrates in a unique way efficient simulation and formal methods for approximate equivalence checking into a search-based circuit optimisation. To make ADAC easily accessible, it is implemented as a module of the ABC tool: a state-of-the-art system for circuit synthesis and verification. Within several hours, ADAC is able to construct high-quality Pareto sets of complex circuits (including even 32-bit multipliers), providing useful trade-offs between the resource consumption and the error that is formally guaranteed. This demonstrates outstanding performance and scalability compared with other existing approaches.
Highlights
In the recent years, reduction of power consumption of computer systems and mobile devices has become one of the biggest challenges in the computer industry
ADAC: Automated Design of Approximate Circuits 613 produce acceptable results even though the underlying computations are performed with a certain error
We present ADAC 1—a novel framework for automated design of approximate circuits
Summary
Reduction of power consumption of computer systems and mobile devices has become one of the biggest challenges in the computer industry. ADAC: Automated Design of Approximate Circuits 613 produce acceptable results even though the underlying computations are performed with a certain error. The framework implements a design loop including (i) a generator of candidate solutions employing genetic search algorithms, (ii) an evaluator estimating non-functional parameters of a candidate solution, and (iii) a verifier checking that the candidate solution does not exceed the permissible error.
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