Publication Details
Inexact Arithmetic Operators
Vašíček Zdeněk, doc. Ing., Ph.D. (DCSY)
Mrázek Vojtěch, Ing., Ph.D. (DCSY)
approximate circuit, adder, multiplier, design method, multi-objective design
Approximate implementations of arithmetic circuits have been developed to find
the best trade-offs between the key circuit parameters (such as energy, area, and
delay) and the error of arithmetic operations. This chapter discusses various
methodological aspects of developing approximate arithmetic circuits, including
design abstractions, number representation, error analysis methods, and
particular design methods. We survey problem-specific methods proposed for the
manual design of approximate adders and multipliers. The circuit approximation
problem is also formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem that can be
solved by a suitable automated circuit design method. A comprehensive open-source
library EvoAppoxLib of approximate circuits that was automatically generated by
one of the automated methods is introduced. We stress the importance of correct
evaluation and comparison of approximate implementations and a proper
benchmarking methodology. Finally, two case studies demonstrate some frequently
overlooked issues related to the selected error analysis approaches.
@inbook{BUT178212,
author="Lukáš {Sekanina} and Zdeněk {Vašíček} and Vojtěch {Mrázek}",
title="Inexact Arithmetic Operators",
booktitle="Approximate Computing Techniques",
year="2022",
publisher="Springer International Publishing",
address="Cham",
pages="81--107",
doi="10.1007/978-3-030-94705-7\{_}4",
isbn="978-3-030-94704-0",
url="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-94705-7"
}