research-article

Architecture support for disciplined approximate programming

Authors:

Hadi Esmaeilzadeh,

Adrian Sampson,

Doug BurgerAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 47, Issue 4

Pages 301 - 312

https://doi.org/10.1145/2248487.2151008

Published: 03 March 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Disciplined approximate programming lets programmers declare which parts of a program can be computed approximately and consequently at a lower energy cost. The compiler proves statically that all approximate computation is properly isolated from precise computation. The hardware is then free to selectively apply approximate storage and approximate computation with no need to perform dynamic correctness checks.

In this paper, we propose an efficient mapping of disciplined approximate programming onto hardware. We describe an ISA extension that provides approximate operations and storage, which give the hardware freedom to save energy at the cost of accuracy. We then propose Truffle, a microarchitecture design that efficiently supports the ISA extensions. The basis of our design is dual-voltage operation, with a high voltage for precise operations and a low voltage for approximate operations. The key aspect of the microarchitecture is its dependence on the instruction stream to determine when to use the low voltage. We evaluate the power savings potential of in-order and out-of-order Truffle configurations and explore the resulting quality of service degradation. We evaluate several applications and demonstrate energy savings up to 43%.

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Cited By

LU JMASUDA YISHIHARA T(2024)Identification of Redundant Flip-Flops Using Fault Injection for Low-Power Approximate Computing CircuitsIEICE Transactions on Fundamentals of Electronics, Communications and Computer Sciences10.1587/transfun.2023VLP0008E107.A:3(540-548)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1587/transfun.2023VLP0008
Hussein EWaschneck BMayr C(2024)Automating application-driven customization of ASIPs: A surveyJournal of Systems Architecture10.1016/j.sysarc.2024.103080148(103080)Online publication date: Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sysarc.2024.103080
Nesam JGanesh SRamachandran S(2024)Effect of Bit-Size Reduced Half-Precision Floating-Point Format on Image Pixel Characterization for AI ApplicationsResults in Engineering10.1016/j.rineng.2024.103179(103179)Online publication date: Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rineng.2024.103179
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Index Terms

Architecture support for disciplined approximate programming
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Architectures
    1. Other architectures
2. Hardware
  1. Communication hardware, interfaces and storage

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 47, Issue 4

ASPLOS '12

April 2012

453 pages

ISSN:0362-1340

EISSN:1558-1160

DOI:10.1145/2248487

Issue’s Table of Contents

ASPLOS XVII: Proceedings of the seventeenth international conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems
March 2012
476 pages
ISBN:9781450307598
DOI:10.1145/2150976
General Chair:
Tim Harris
Microsoft Research
,
Program Chair:
Michael L. Scott
University of Rochester

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 03 March 2012

Published in SIGPLAN Volume 47, Issue 4

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Citations

Cited By

LU JMASUDA YISHIHARA T(2024)Identification of Redundant Flip-Flops Using Fault Injection for Low-Power Approximate Computing CircuitsIEICE Transactions on Fundamentals of Electronics, Communications and Computer Sciences10.1587/transfun.2023VLP0008E107.A:3(540-548)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1587/transfun.2023VLP0008
Hussein EWaschneck BMayr C(2024)Automating application-driven customization of ASIPs: A surveyJournal of Systems Architecture10.1016/j.sysarc.2024.103080148(103080)Online publication date: Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sysarc.2024.103080
Nesam JGanesh SRamachandran S(2024)Effect of Bit-Size Reduced Half-Precision Floating-Point Format on Image Pixel Characterization for AI ApplicationsResults in Engineering10.1016/j.rineng.2024.103179(103179)Online publication date: Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rineng.2024.103179
Loloeyan PNikmehr HRezaei M(2024)A novel approximate cache block compressor for error-resilient image dataComputers and Electrical Engineering10.1016/j.compeleceng.2024.109106115(109106)Online publication date: Apr-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compeleceng.2024.109106
Chen ZHua YZuo PSun YGuo Y(2024)Approximate Similarity-Aware Compression for Non-Volatile Main MemoryJournal of Computer Science and Technology10.1007/s11390-023-2565-739:1(63-81)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-023-2565-7
Hanif MMrazek VShafique M(2024)Approximate Computing ArchitecturesHandbook of Computer Architecture10.1007/978-981-97-9314-3_27(1027-1067)Online publication date: 21-Dec-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-9314-3_27
MASUDA YHONDA YISHIHARA T(2023)Dynamic Verification Framework of Approximate Computing Circuits using Quality-Aware Coverage-Based Grey-Box FuzzingIEICE Transactions on Fundamentals of Electronics, Communications and Computer Sciences10.1587/transfun.2022VLP0002E106.A:3(514-522)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.1587/transfun.2022VLP0002
Patali PKassim S(2023)Exact and approximate multiplications for signal processing applicationsMicroelectronics Journal10.1016/j.mejo.2023.105688132(105688)Online publication date: Feb-2023
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mejo.2023.105688
Wu YJiang HMa ZGou PLu YHan JYin SWei SLiu L(2022)An Energy-Efficient Approximate Divider Based on Logarithmic Conversion and Piecewise Constant ApproximationIEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers10.1109/TCSI.2022.316789469:7(2655-2668)Online publication date: Jul-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCSI.2022.3167894
Ma DZhang XHuang KJiang YChang WJiao X(2022)DEVoT: Dynamic Delay Modeling of Functional Units Under Voltage and Temperature VariationsIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems10.1109/TCAD.2021.307697041:4(827-839)Online publication date: Apr-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCAD.2021.3076970
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