Flexible Low-Cost Power-Efficient Video Memory With ECC-Adaptation

Approximate Memory for Low-Power Video Applications

“…Specifically, it can protect 2.75 MSBs per byte using 1 LSB per byte. Very recently, in our previous work [9], we developed an approximate SRAM with three power-quality tradeoff levels, hamming code-74 (ECC74), hamming code-1511 (ECC1511), and no ECC. This technique utilized LSBs to store the parity bits, thereby avoiding dedicated parity bit storage in order to reduce area overhead.…”

“…This is because, although mobile videos are delivered over different networks and are visualized in various mobile terminals, there are three common characteristics that may potentially contribute to low-power design [5]: (i) Inputs: video data is noisy and redundant; (ii) Outputs: videos on mobile devices are generated for humans such that minor variations cannot be discerned; and (iii) Computation Patterns: statistical computations during the video data processing results in attenuation or cancellation of errors, which can potentially fix faults caused by memory failures. Utilizing these intrinsic characteristics of mobile video applications, such as the contribution of different bits of pixels to output quality, different approximate memories with optimized design techniques (e.g., memory cell structures [1], [6], device sizing [7], or error-correction code (ECC) [8], [9]) are used VOLUME 11, 2023 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.…”

Content-Adaptable ROI-Aware Video Storage for Power-Quality Scalable Mobile Streaming

“…Recently, in order to enable run-time power-quality adaptation, several video SRAM designs have been presented, such as data-dependent memory [39], SRAM with selective hamming (15,11) [11], and SRAM with errorcorrection-code (ECC) adaptation [40]. The data-dependent SRAM consists of 10T bitcells and associated conditional pre-charge circuitry to adapt to the stored data's statistical dependencies.…”

“…The developed SRAM with selective hamming (15,11) [11] can switch between no ECC and hamming (15,11) based on the quality requirement of the video applications. The very recent SRAM design with ECC adaptation [40] supports three different power-quality tradeoff levels, including hamming code-74, hamming code-1511, and no ECC. However, those adaptive memory designs focus on efficiency optimization while maintaining an acceptable video quality, such as keeping the PSNR values above 30 dB [11,40], and they did not consider the viewer's experience in the memory design process.…”

“…The very recent SRAM design with ECC adaptation [40] supports three different power-quality tradeoff levels, including hamming code-74, hamming code-1511, and no ECC. However, those adaptive memory designs focus on efficiency optimization while maintaining an acceptable video quality, such as keeping the PSNR values above 30 dB [11,40], and they did not consider the viewer's experience in the memory design process. Therefore, they may cause large and inefficient design margins.…”