Paper Info
Title
X-CGRA: An Energy-Efficient Approximate Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Architecture
Abstract
In this article, we present an energy-efficient approximate CGRA (X-CGRA). Instead of conventional exact arithmetic units, it employs configurable approximate adders and multipliers in the so-called quality-scalable processing elements (QSPEs). Furthermore, the structure and functionality of the other architectural components, like context memory, are modified based on the quality-scalable operating modes of the QSPEs. The quality reconfigurability of the X-CGRA makes it amenable for both error-resilient and nonresilient applications. To map the applications on the X-CGRA, a mapping technique is proposed that efficiently utilizes the QSPEs and selects appropriate approximation modes in order to lower the energy consumption while satisfying a user-defined quality constraint. We evaluate the efficacy of our X-CGRA for several benchmark applications from different domains, including image/video processing, signal processing, and scientific computations. Different sizes of X-CGRA are synthesized using a 15-nm FinFET technology. For these benchmarks, the results indicate energy consumption reduction of up to <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$3.21\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> compared to those of a typical exact CGRA, at the cost of 4% quality loss.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.1109/TCAD.2019.2937738
IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Energy efficiency,Reconfigurable architectures,Energy consumption,Approximate computing,Adders,Program processors
Journal
39
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
10
0278-0070
2
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.42
0
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Omid Akbari120.42
Mehdi Kamal218930.41
Ali Afzali-Kusha38111.95
Massoud Pedram478011211.32
Muhammad Shafique51945157.67