TY - JOUR
T1 - Progressive Scaled STT-RAM for Approximate Computing in Multimedia Applications
AU - Zeinali, Behzad
AU - Karsinos, Dimitrios
AU - Moradi, Farshad
PY - 2018/7
Y1 - 2018/7
N2 - Spintronic memories are one of the most promising candidates as a universal memory. Although they offer superior energy efficiency over the conventional memories, benefiting from approximate computing approach, some novel techniques can be applied to lower the power consumption even further. In this brief, we propose a progressive scaling scheme for spin-transfer torque random access memory (STT-RAM) arrays, by which the power consumption is reduced at the expense of small quality degradation. According to the proposed approach, access transistors in STT-RAM cells are scaled based on an optimized scaling factor, where least significant bits and most significant bits come with different bit error rates in the data word. Simulation results show that the proposed approach provides 36.7% write power dissipation and 25% die area savings, respectively, while negligible quality degradation is observed based on mean structural similarity index.
AB - Spintronic memories are one of the most promising candidates as a universal memory. Although they offer superior energy efficiency over the conventional memories, benefiting from approximate computing approach, some novel techniques can be applied to lower the power consumption even further. In this brief, we propose a progressive scaling scheme for spin-transfer torque random access memory (STT-RAM) arrays, by which the power consumption is reduced at the expense of small quality degradation. According to the proposed approach, access transistors in STT-RAM cells are scaled based on an optimized scaling factor, where least significant bits and most significant bits come with different bit error rates in the data word. Simulation results show that the proposed approach provides 36.7% write power dissipation and 25% die area savings, respectively, while negligible quality degradation is observed based on mean structural similarity index.
KW - Degradation
KW - Energy-Efficiency
KW - Magnetic tunneling
KW - Multimedia application
KW - Multimedia communication
KW - Random access memory
KW - STT-RAM
KW - Streaming media
KW - Switches
KW - Transistors
KW - approximate computing.
KW - approximate computing
KW - multimedia application
KW - energy efficiency
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85028453918
U2 - 10.1109/TCSII.2017.2738844
DO - 10.1109/TCSII.2017.2738844
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85028453918
SN - 1549-7747
VL - 65
SP - 938
EP - 942
JO - IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs
JF - IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs
IS - 7
ER -