Mathematical Modeling of General Inaccurate Adders

Abstract

Inaccurate circuits make possible the conservation of limited resources, such as energy. But effective design of such circuits requires an understanding of resulting tradeoffs between accuracy and design parameters, such as voltages and speed of execution. Although studies of tradeoffs have been done on specific circuits, the applicability of those studies is narrow. This paper presents a comprehensive and mathematically rigorous method for analyzing a large class of inaccurate circuits for addition. Furthermore, it presents new, fast algorithms for the computation of key statistical measures of inaccuracy in such adders, thus helping hardware architects explore the design space with greater confidence.