Title
An ECC-Free MLC STT-RAM Based Approximate Memory Design for Multimedia Applications
Abstract
Exponential growth of high-end multimedia data processing requirement produces sharply increasing demand on memory capacities of modern computer systems and mobile platforms. As a next generation memory technology, Multi-level Cell Spin-Transfer Torque Random Access Memory (MLC STT-RAM) is a promising candidate for high-performance and high-density applications. However, its multi-bit per cell advantage has been significantly compromised by the redundant memories to overcome the severe reliability concerns. In this paper, we demonstrate that the compressed image data can exhibit very asymmetric error tolerance capabilities across various layers and resolutions. We then propose a reconfigurable high density MLC STT-RAM approximate memory design by leveraging such nature of the compressed data. Our tri-zone design can offer dynamic configuration among half-state, tristate and full-state to satisfy the run-time error requirement without incurring extra error correction overheads. Simulation results show that our design can boost the storage capacity significantly with marginal image quality degradation.
Year
DOI
Venue
2018
10.1109/ISVLSI.2018.00035
2018 IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI (ISVLSI)
Keywords
Field
DocType
MLC STT RAM,Image compress,Approximate storage
Data processing,Torque,Computer science,Image quality,Error detection and correction,Image resolution,Multimedia,Exponential growth,Random access,Bit error rate
Conference
ISSN
ISBN
Citations 
2159-3469
978-1-5386-7100-9
1
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.38
11
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Zihao Liu1345.45
Tao Liu2457.40
Jie Guo328956.10
Nansong Wu411.73
Wujie Wen530030.61