Design, Verification, Test and In-Field Implications of Approximate Computing Systems

Alberto Bosio (1, 2) , Stefano Di Carlo (3) , Patrick Girard (4) , Ernesto Sanchez (3) , Alessandro Savino (3) , Lukas Sekanina (5) , Marcello Traiola (1) , Zdeněk Vašíček (5) , Arnaud Virazel (4)

1 ECL - École Centrale de Lyon
2 INL - CSH - INL - Conception de Systèmes Hétérogènes
3 Polito - Politecnico di Torino = Polytechnic of Turin
4 TEST - Test and dEpendability of microelectronic integrated SysTems
5 BUT - Brno University of Technology [Brno]

Today, the concept of approximation in computing is becoming more and more a "hot topic" to investigate how computing systems can be more energy efficient, faster, and less complex. Intuitively, instead of performing exact computations and, consequently, requiring a high amount of resources, Approximate Computing aims at selectively relaxing the specifications, trading accuracy off for efficiency. While Approximate Computing gives several promises when looking at systems' performance, energy efficiency and complexity, it poses significant challenges regarding the design, the verification, the test and the in-field reliability of Approximate Computing systems. This tutorial paper covers these aspects leveraging the experience of the authors in the field to present state-of-the-art solutions to apply during the different development phases of an Approximate Computing system.

Keywords: approximate computing; circuit; design; test

Domains: Micro and nanotechnologies/Microelectronics

Alberto Bosio, Stefano Di Carlo, Patrick Girard, Ernesto Sanchez, Alessandro Savino, et al.. Design, Verification, Test and In-Field Implications of Approximate Computing Systems. ETS 2020 - 25th IEEE European Test Symposium, May 2020, Tallinn, Estonia. pp.1-10, ⟨10.1109/ETS48528.2020.9131557⟩. ⟨lirmm-03035724⟩