Title
Comparing Stochastic and Deterministic Computing
Abstract
Technology scaling has raised the specter of myriads of cheap, but unreliable and/or stochastic devices that must be creatively combined to create a reliable computing system. This has renewed the interest in computing that exploits stochasticity—embracing, not combating the device physics. If a stochastic representation is used to implement a programmable general-purpose architecture akin to CPUs, GPUs, or FPGAs, the preponderance of evidence indicates that most of the system energy will be expended in communication and storage as opposed to computation. This paper presents an analytical treatment of the benefits and drawbacks of adopting a stochastic approach by examining the cost of representing a value. We show both scaling laws and costs for low precision representations. We also analyze the cost of multiplication implemented using stochastic versus deterministic approaches, since multiplication is the prototypical inexpensive stochastic operation. We show that the deterministic approach compares favorably to the stochastic approach when holding precision and reliability constant.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1109/LCA.2015.2412553
IEEE Computer Architecture Letters
Keywords
Field
DocType
logic gates,encoding,stochastic processes,computer architecture
Logic gate,Computer science,Parallel computing,Field-programmable gate array,Stochastic process,Exploit,Real-time computing,Multiplication,Deterministic system (philosophy),Encoding (memory),Computation
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
PP
99
1556-6056
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
2
0.39
7
Authors
1
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Rajit Manohar1103896.72