AxRAM @ SBESC 2019

Our participation in the IX Brazilian Symposium on Computing Systems Engineering

In 21 November 2019 we presented our first paper presenting the AxRAM data access interface for approximate memories, in our paper A Resilient Interface for Approximate Data Access.

Abstract

Approximate memories offer lower energy cost while introducing errors to applications. If such errors affect essential parts of the application, the execution may fail, decreasing out- puts quality and energy savings. We present AxRAM, a memory architecture interface for approximate data that allows applica- tions to benefit from energy savings provided by approximate memories, while improving quality of results and failure rates. AxRAM places critical application data into non-approximate memory regions and implements a resilient addressing scheme that reduces invalid data accesses that lead to application crashes. On a voltage-overscaled SRAM, AxRAM reduces 50.97% of application crashes on average when compared to an unpro- tected approximate memory. Compared to a system using non- approximate SRAM, our proposal reduces energy consumption by 45.36% on average while providing at least 80% output quality.

Content

Cite us

@INPROCEEDINGS{AxRAM-SBESC2019,
  author={J. F. {Filho} and I. B. {Felzmann} and R. J. {Azevedo} and L. F. {Wanner}},
  booktitle={2019 IX Brazilian Symposium on Computing Systems Engineering (SBESC)}, 
  title={A Resilient Interface for Approximate Data Access}, 
  year={2019},
  pages={1-8},
  keywords={Approximate Computing;Approximate Memory;Hybrid Approximate SRAM;Near Threshold Voltage},
  doi={10.1109/SBESC49506.2019.9046069},
  ISSN={2324-7894},
  month={Nov},}

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