What is it about?
Area overhead reduction in conventional triple modular redundancy (TMR) by using approximate modules has been proposed in the literature. However, the vulnerability of approximate TMR (ATMR) in the case of a critical input, where faults can lead to errors at the output, is yet to be studied. Here, identifying critical input space through automatic test pattern generation and making it unavailable for the technique of approximating modules of TMR (ATMR) were focused, which involves a prime implicant reduction expansion. The results indicate that the proposed method provides 75–98% fault coverage, which amounts up to 43.8% improvement over that achieved previously. The input vulnerability-aware approach enables a drastic reduction in search space, ranging from 41.5 to 95.5%, for the selection of candidate ATMR modules and no compromise on the area overhead reduction is noticed.
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Why is it important?
Our work proposes an ATMR that targets reduced area overheard and higher fault coverage, with the benefit of protecting the portion of the input space that is most vulnerable to errors and decreasing the search space for ATMR candidates. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that combats the critical input scenario for ATMR.
Perspectives
Unlike TMR, ATMR is vulnerable to errors and is of immense significance to avoid approximations at critical inputs. Note that identifying the most critical or persistent bits is a difficult task. As ATMR is vulnerable to errors, the methodology for ATMR extraction must ensure that vulnerability of inputs is taken care of.
Tooba Arifeen
Chosun University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Input Vulnerability-Aware Approximate Triple Modular Redundancy: Higher Fault Coverage, Improved Search Space, and Reduced Area Overhead , Electronics Letters, June 2018, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (the IET),
DOI: 10.1049/el.2018.1042.
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