58,715 research outputs found
Ring oscillator clocks and margins
How much margin do we have to add to the delay lines of a bundled-data circuit? This paper is an attempt to give a methodical answer to this question, taking into account all sources of variability and the existing EDA machinery for timing analysis and sign-off. The paper is based on the study of the margins of a ring oscillator that substitutes a PLL as clock generator. A timing model is proposed that shows that a 12% margin for delay lines can be sufficient to cover variability in a 65nm technology. In a typical scenario, performance and energy improvements between 15% and 35% can be obtained by using a ring oscillator instead of a PLL. The paper concludes that a synchronous circuit with a ring oscillator clock shows similar benefits in performance and energy as those of bundled-data asynchronous circuits.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
On the Resilience of RTL NN Accelerators: Fault Characterization and Mitigation
Machine Learning (ML) is making a strong resurgence in tune with the massive
generation of unstructured data which in turn requires massive computational
resources. Due to the inherently compute- and power-intensive structure of
Neural Networks (NNs), hardware accelerators emerge as a promising solution.
However, with technology node scaling below 10nm, hardware accelerators become
more susceptible to faults, which in turn can impact the NN accuracy. In this
paper, we study the resilience aspects of Register-Transfer Level (RTL) model
of NN accelerators, in particular, fault characterization and mitigation. By
following a High-Level Synthesis (HLS) approach, first, we characterize the
vulnerability of various components of RTL NN. We observed that the severity of
faults depends on both i) application-level specifications, i.e., NN data
(inputs, weights, or intermediate), NN layers, and NN activation functions, and
ii) architectural-level specifications, i.e., data representation model and the
parallelism degree of the underlying accelerator. Second, motivated by
characterization results, we present a low-overhead fault mitigation technique
that can efficiently correct bit flips, by 47.3% better than state-of-the-art
methods.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
PieceTimer: A Holistic Timing Analysis Framework Considering Setup/Hold Time Interdependency Using A Piecewise Model
In static timing analysis, clock-to-q delays of flip-flops are considered as
constants. Setup times and hold times are characterized separately and also
used as constants. The characterized delays, setup times and hold times, are
ap- plied in timing analysis independently to verify the perfor- mance of
circuits. In reality, however, clock-to-q delays of flip-flops depend on both
setup and hold times. Instead of being constants, these delays change with
respect to different setup/hold time combinations. Consequently, the simple ab-
straction of setup/hold times and constant clock-to-q delays introduces
inaccuracy in timing analysis. In this paper, we propose a holistic method to
consider the relation between clock-to-q delays and setup/hold time
combinations with a piecewise linear model. The result is more accurate than
that of traditional timing analysis, and the incorporation of the
interdependency between clock-to-q delays, setup times and hold times may also
improve circuit performance.Comment: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD),
November 201
Statistical Power Supply Dynamic Noise Prediction in Hierarchical Power Grid and Package Networks
One of the most crucial high performance systems-on-chip design challenge is to front their power supply noise sufferance due to high frequencies, huge number of functional blocks and technology scaling down. Marking a difference from traditional post physical-design static voltage drop analysis, /a priori dynamic voltage drop/evaluation is the focus of this work. It takes into account transient currents and on-chip and package /RLC/ parasitics while exploring the power grid design solution space: Design countermeasures can be thus early defined and long post physical-design verification cycles can be shortened. As shown by an extensive set of results, a carefully extracted and modular grid library assures realistic evaluation of parasitics impact on noise and facilitates the power network construction; furthermore statistical analysis guarantees a correct current envelope evaluation and Spice simulations endorse reliable result
- âŠ