research-article

Enhancing Speculative Execution With Selective Approximate Computing

Authors:

Bernard Nongpoh,

Moumita Das, and

Ansuman BanerjeeAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES), Volume 24, Issue 2

Article No.: 26, Pages 1 - 29

https://doi.org/10.1145/3307651

Published: 14 February 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Speculative execution is an optimization technique used in modern processors by which predicted instructions are executed in advance with an objective of overlapping the latencies of slow operations. Branch prediction and load value speculation are examples of speculative execution used in modern pipelined processors to avoid execution stalls. However, speculative executions incur a performance penalty as an execution rollback when there is a misprediction. In this work, we propose to aid speculative execution with approximate computing by relaxing the execution rollback penalty associated with a misprediction. We propose a sensitivity analysis method for data and branches in a program to identify the data load and branch instructions that can be executed without any rollback in the pipeline and yet can ensure a certain user-specified quality of service of the application with a probabilistic reliability. Our analysis is based on statistical methods, particularly hypothesis testing and Bayesian analysis. We perform an architectural simulation of our proposed approximate execution and report the benefits in terms of CPU cycles and energy utilization on selected applications from the AxBench, ACCEPT, and Parsec 3.0 benchmarks suite.

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Cited By

Damsgaard HGrenier AKatare DTaufique ZShakibhamedan STroccoli TChatzitsompanis GKanduri AOmetov ADing ATaherinejad NKarakonstantis GWoods RNurmi J(2024)Adaptive approximate computing in edge AI and IoT applications: A reviewJournal of Systems Architecture10.1016/j.sysarc.2024.103114150(103114)Online publication date: May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sysarc.2024.103114
Kamahori KTakamaeda-Yamazaki S(2022)Accelerating Decision Tree Ensemble with Guided Branch ApproximationProceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Highly-Efficient Accelerators and Reconfigurable Technologies10.1145/3535044.3535048(24-32)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3535044.3535048
Pomeranz I(2022)Usable Circuits with Imperfect Scan Logic2022 IEEE 31st Asian Test Symposium (ATS)10.1109/ATS56056.2022.00039(156-161)Online publication date: Nov-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ATS56056.2022.00039
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Index Terms

Enhancing Speculative Execution With Selective Approximate Computing
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Dependable and fault-tolerant systems and networks
    1. Processors and memory architectures
    2. Redundancy
  2. Embedded and cyber-physical systems
    1. Embedded systems

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems

ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems Volume 24, Issue 2

March 2019

287 pages

ISSN:1084-4309

EISSN:1557-7309

DOI:10.1145/3306156

Editor:
Naehyuck Chang
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea

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Copyright © 2019 ACM.

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ACM Journals for the Design of Smart and Connected Systems

Publication History

Published: 14 February 2019

Accepted: 01 January 2019

Revised: 01 November 2018

Received: 01 April 2018

Published in TODAES Volume 24, Issue 2

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National Institute of Technology Meghalaya and Visvesvaraya Ph.D. Scheme, Government of India

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Cited By

Damsgaard HGrenier AKatare DTaufique ZShakibhamedan STroccoli TChatzitsompanis GKanduri AOmetov ADing ATaherinejad NKarakonstantis GWoods RNurmi J(2024)Adaptive approximate computing in edge AI and IoT applications: A reviewJournal of Systems Architecture10.1016/j.sysarc.2024.103114150(103114)Online publication date: May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sysarc.2024.103114
Kamahori KTakamaeda-Yamazaki S(2022)Accelerating Decision Tree Ensemble with Guided Branch ApproximationProceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Highly-Efficient Accelerators and Reconfigurable Technologies10.1145/3535044.3535048(24-32)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3535044.3535048
Pomeranz I(2022)Usable Circuits with Imperfect Scan Logic2022 IEEE 31st Asian Test Symposium (ATS)10.1109/ATS56056.2022.00039(156-161)Online publication date: Nov-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ATS56056.2022.00039
Nongpoh BRay RBanerjee ARoop PZhan NGao SNuzzo P(2019)Approximate computing for multithreaded programs in shared memory architecturesProceedings of the 17th ACM-IEEE International Conference on Formal Methods and Models for System Design10.1145/3359986.3361209(1-9)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3359986.3361209
Damsgaard HOmetov ANurmi J(undefined)Approximation Opportunities in Edge Computing Hardware: A Systematic Literature ReviewACM Computing Surveys10.1145/3572772
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3572772

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