autoAx: An Automatic Design Space Exploration and Circuit Building Methodology utilizing Libraries of Approximate Components

Approximate computing is an emerging paradigm for developing highly energy-efficient computing systems such as various accelerators. In the literature, many libraries of elementary approximate circuits have already been proposed to simplify the design process of approximate accelerators. Because these libraries contain from tens to thousands of approximate implementations for a single arithmetic operation it is intractable to find an optimal combination of approximate circuits in the library even for an application consisting of a few operations. An open problem is "how to effectively combine circuits from these libraries to construct complex approximate accelerators". This paper proposes a novel methodology for searching, selecting and combining the most suitable approximate circuits from a set of available libraries to generate an approximate accelerator for a given application. To enable fast design space generation and exploration, the methodology utilizes machine learning techniques to create computational models estimating the overall quality of processing and hardware cost without performing full synthesis at the accelerator level. Using the methodology, we construct hundreds of approximate accelerators (for a Sobel edge detector) showing different but relevant tradeoffs between the quality of processing and hardware cost and identify a corresponding Pareto-frontier. Furthermore, when searching for approximate implementations of a generic Gaussian filter consisting of 17 arithmetic operations, the proposed approach allows us to identify approximately $10^3$ highly important implementations from $10^{23}$ possible solutions in a few hours, while the exhaustive search would take four months on a high-end processor.Comment: Accepted for publication at the Design Automation Conference 2019 (DAC'19), Las Vegas, Nevada, US

Multiobjective optimization of electromagnetic structures based on self-organizing migration

Práce se zabývá popisem nového stochastického vícekriteriálního optimalizačního algoritmu MOSOMA (Multiobjective Self-Organizing Migrating Algorithm). Je zde ukázáno, že algoritmus je schopen řešit nejrůznější typy optimalizačních úloh (s jakýmkoli počtem kritérií, s i bez omezujících podmínek, se spojitým i diskrétním stavovým prostorem). Výsledky algoritmu jsou srovnány s dalšími běžně používanými metodami pro vícekriteriální optimalizaci na velké sadě testovacích úloh. Uvedli jsme novou techniku pro výpočet metriky rozprostření (spread) založené na hledání minimální kostry grafu (Minimum Spanning Tree) pro problémy mající více než dvě kritéria. Doporučené hodnoty pro parametry řídící běh algoritmu byly určeny na základě výsledků jejich citlivostní analýzy. Algoritmus MOSOMA je dále úspěšně použit pro řešení různých návrhových úloh z oblasti elektromagnetismu (návrh Yagi-Uda antény a dielektrických filtrů, adaptivní řízení vyzařovaného svazku v časové oblasti…).This thesis describes a novel stochastic multi-objective optimization algorithm called MOSOMA (Multi-Objective Self-Organizing Migrating Algorithm). It is shown that MOSOMA is able to solve various types of multi-objective optimization problems (with any number of objectives, unconstrained or constrained problems, with continuous or discrete decision space). The efficiency of MOSOMA is compared with other commonly used optimization techniques on a large suite of test problems. The new procedure based on finding of minimum spanning tree for computing the spread metric for problems with more than two objectives is proposed. Recommended values of parameters controlling the run of MOSOMA are derived according to their sensitivity analysis. The ability of MOSOMA to solve real-life problems from electromagnetics is shown in a few examples (Yagi-Uda and dielectric filters design, adaptive beam forming in time domain…).

Chaotic multi-objective optimization based design of fractional order PI{\lambda}D{\mu} controller in AVR system

In this paper, a fractional order (FO) PI{\lambda}D\mu controller is designed to take care of various contradictory objective functions for an Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR) system. An improved evolutionary Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA II), which is augmented with a chaotic map for greater effectiveness, is used for the multi-objective optimization problem. The Pareto fronts showing the trade-off between different design criteria are obtained for the PI{\lambda}D\mu and PID controller. A comparative analysis is done with respect to the standard PID controller to demonstrate the merits and demerits of the fractional order PI{\lambda}D\mu controller.Comment: 30 pages, 14 figure

A design tool for high-resolution high-frequency cascade continuous- time Σ∆ modulators

Event: Microtechnologies for the New Millennium, 2007, Maspalomas, Gran Canaria, SpainThis paper introduces a CAD methodology to assist the de signer in the implementation of continuous-time (CT) cas- cade Σ∆ modulators. The salient features of this methodology ar e: (a) flexible behavioral modeling for optimum accuracy- efficiency trade-offs at different stages of the top-down synthesis process; (b) direct synthesis in the continuous-time domain for minimum circuit complexity and sensitivity; a nd (c) mixed knowledge-based and optimization-based architec- tural exploration and specification transmission for enhanced circuit performance. The applicability of this methodology will be illustrated via the design of a 12 bit 20 MHz CT Σ∆ modulator in a 1.2V 130nm CMOS technology.Ministerio de Ciencia y Educación TEC2004-01752/MICMinisterio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio FIT-330100-2006-134 SPIRIT Projec