Approximate Computing: Test and Reliability Issues and Opportunities
Alberto Bosio , Ecole Centrale de Lyon, France
Syllabus
Approximate Computing (AxC) is today one of the hottest topics related to system design and optimization. Thanks to this computing paradigm, designers are able to reduce area, power consumption, and even production costs in the case the target application can accept a given degree of inaccuracy in the final computations. This lecture aims at discussing the impact of Approximate Computing on the test and reliability. More in particular, it aims at showing that it is possible to use Approximate Computing to implement low cost but still efficient test mechanisms and fault tolerant architectures. The lecture is divided in three parts:
- Introduction to Approximate Computing Paradigm (1 hour)
- Approximate Test and Test of Approximate Circuits (1.5 hours)
- Approximate Fault Tolerance Techniques (1.5 hours)