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research article

Inexact-Aware Architecture Design for Ultra-Low Power Bio-Signal Analysis

Basu, Soumya Subhra  
•
Garcia del Valle, Pablo  
•
Karakonstantis, Giorgios
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2016
IET Computers & Digital Techniques

This paper introduces an inexact, but ultra-low power, computing architecture devoted to the embedded analysis of bio-signals. The platform operates at extremely low voltage supply levels to minimize energy consumption. In this scenario, the reliability of SRAM memories cannot be guaranteed when using conventional 6-transistor implementations. While error correction codes and dedicated SRAM implementations can ensure correct operations in this near-threshold regime, they incur in significant area and energy overheads, and should therefore be employed judiciously. Herein, we propose a novel scheme to design inexact computing architectures that selectively protects memory regions based on their significance, i.e., their impact on the end-to-end quality of service, as dictated by the bio-signal application characteristics. We illustrate our scheme on an industrial benchmark application performing the power spectrum analysis (PSA) of electrocardiograms. Experimental evidence showcases that a significance-based memory protection approach leads to a small degradation in the output quality with respect to an exact implementation, while resulting in substantial energy gains, both in the memory and the processing subsystem.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1049/iet-cdt.2015.0194
Web of Science ID

WOS:000386454000004

Author(s)
Basu, Soumya Subhra  
Garcia del Valle, Pablo  
Karakonstantis, Giorgios
Ansaloni, Giovanni  
Pozzi, Laura
Atienza Alonso, David  
Date Issued

2016

Publisher

Inst Engineering Technology-Iet

Published in
IET Computers & Digital Techniques
Volume

10

Issue

6

Start page

306

End page

314

Subjects

Ultra-low power

•

embedded systems

•

wearable health monitors

•

error tolerance

•

power spectral analysis.

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
ESL  
Available on Infoscience
April 11, 2016
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/125622
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