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Probability gate model based methods for approximate arithmetic circuits reliability estimation

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Abstract

With the rapid development of approximate computing technology, the reliability evaluation of approximate circuits has attracted significant interest. So far, few methods can be applied to estimate the reliability of approximate circuits, the existing methods are based on probability transfer module (PTM) and Monte Carlo (MC) method. However, the PTM-based methods are confined to small-scale approximate circuits and large circuits with weak signal correlation, and the MC method is time-consuming to obtain accurate results. This paper proposes an algorithm for determining the acceptable outputs of approximate dividers based on the design principle of the approximate divider. Then based on the probability gate model (PGM), this paper presents three methods for reliability estimation of gate-level approximate arithmetic circuits. The non-processing correlation algorithm does not consider the correlation among signals to obtain an approximate value of circuit reliability, and its time complexity keeps a linear relation with the number of gates. The processing correlation algorithm can estimate the correlation caused by fanout nodes of the approximate arithmetic circuits, and it has the obvious advantage on accuracy. However, its time complexity is exponential with the number of fanout nodes in the circuit. The fusion algorithm considers the effect of each fanout node on the reliability of the circuit separately and then uses a linear model to obtain the circuit reliability. Although some accuracy is lost, the time complexity is linear. The experimental results on benchmark circuits show that the proposed methods are effective, and have certain advantages in accuracy and efficiency as compared with the existing methods.

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Acknowledgements

Science Foundation of China under Grant nos. 61432017, 61772199 and 61974105.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Software Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 201804, China

    Jianhui Jiang & Tao Wang

  2. School of Computer Science and Technology, Shanghai University of Electric Power, Shanghai, 200090, China

    Zhen Wang

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  1. Jianhui Jiang
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  2. Tao Wang
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  3. Zhen Wang
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Correspondence to Zhen Wang.

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Jiang, J., Wang, T. & Wang, Z. Probability gate model based methods for approximate arithmetic circuits reliability estimation. CCF Trans. HPC 3, 201–219 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42514-020-00058-1

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