Abstract A significant challenge hindering the widespread adoption of approximate hardware units is the complexity associated with test and error evaluation. We address this issue by extending Information Flow Tracking (IFT) for hardware designs to accommodate approximate units. Unlike conventional IFT approaches, our system employs a dynamic, error-responsive tag-based mechanism that facilitates tracking the error characteristics and their propagation within approximate units. Such an approach is vital in the domain of approximate computing, where uncommon yet substantial errors, such as those found in Equal Segmentation Adders (ESA), can markedly influence computation accuracy and reliability. By focusing on the dynamic nature of errors and their traceability, our methodology supports understanding the effects of approximation errors, thereby promoting their broader utilisation in various applications. The results of our study demonstrate the potential of analysing error propagation in approximate designs.

Lutz Schammer

Gianluca Martino

Amir Najafi

Alberto Garcia-Ortiz

Detailed insight into approximate circuits with error-responsive information flow tracking

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Journal Info

Category	Quartile
COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS	4