The BrainFrame framework is designed to transparently configure and select the appropriate back-end accelerator technology for use per simulation run. The PyNN integration provides a familiar bridge to the vast number of models already available. Additionally, it gives a clear roadmap for extending the platform support beyond the proof of concept, with improved usability and directly useful features to the computational-neuroscience community, paving the way for wider adoption.
Simulations of an inverter and a 32-bit SRAM bit slice are performed based on an atomistic approach. The circuits' devices are populated with individual defects, which have realistic carrier-capture and emission behaviour. The wide distribution of defect time scales, accounts for both fast (Random Telegraph Noise -RTN) and near-permanent (Bias Temperature Instability -BTI) defects. The atomistic property of the model allows the detection of workload dependency in the delay of both circuits. Index Terms-Bias-temperature instability (BTI), circuit simulations, parametric reliability, random telegraph noise (RTN), static random access memory (SRAM), workload dependency
Technology downscaling is expected to amplify a variety of reliability concerns in future digital systems. A good understanding of reliability threats is crucial for the creation of efficient mitigation techniques. This survey performs a systematic classification of the state of the art on the analysis and modeling of such threats, which are caused by physical mechanisms to digital systems. The purpose of this article is to provide a classification tool that can aid with the navigation across the entire landscape of reliability analysis and modeling. A classification framework is constructed in a top-down fashion from complementary categories, each one addressing an approach on reliability analysis and modeling. In comparison to other classifications, the proposed methodology approaches the target research domain in a complete way, without suppressing hybrid works that fall under multiple categories. To substantiate the usability of the classification framework, representative works from the state of the art are mapped to each appropriate category and are briefly analyzed. Thus, research trends and opportunities for novel approaches can be identified.
To enable energy-efficient embedded execution of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs), the critical sections of these workloads, their multiply-accumulate (MAC) operations, need to be carefully optimized. The SotA pursues this through runtime precision-scalable MAC operators, which can support the varying precision needs of DNNs in an energy-efficient way. Yet, to implement the adaptable precision MAC operation, most SotA solutions rely on separately optimized low precision multipliers and a precision-variable accumulation scheme, with the possible disadvantages of a high control complexity and degraded throughput. This paper, first optimizes one of the most effective SotA techniques to support fully-connected DNN layers. This mode, exploiting the transformation of a high precision multiplier into independent parallel low-precision multipliers, will be called the Sum Separate (SS) mode. In addition, this work suggests an alternative low-precision scheme, i.e. the implicit accumulation of multiple low precision products within the multiplier itself, called the Sum Together (ST) mode. Based on the two types of MAC arrangements explored, corresponding architectures have been proposed to implement DNN processing. The two architectures, yielding the same throughput, are compared in different working precisions (2/4/8/16-bit), based on Post-Synthesis simulation. The result shows that the proposed ST-Mode based architecture outperforms the earlier SS-Mode by up to ×1.6 on Energy Efficiency (TOPS/W) and ×1.5 on Area Efficiency (GOPS/mm 2 ).
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