Accuracy-configurable adder for approximate arithmetic designs

Approximation can increase performance or reduce power consumption with a simplified or inaccurate circuit in application contexts where strict requirements are relaxed. For applications related to human senses, approximate arithmetic can be used to generate sufficient results rather than absolutely accurate results. Approximate design exploits a tradeoff of accuracy in computation versus performance and power. However, required accuracy varies according to applications, and 100% accurate results are still required in some situations. In this paper, we propose an accuracy-configurable approximate (ACA) adder for which the accuracy of results is configurable during runtime. Because of its configurability, the ACA adder can adaptively operate in both approximate (inaccurate) mode and accurate mode. The proposed adder can achieve significant throughput improvement and total power reduction over conventional adder designs. It can be used in accuracy-configurable applications, and improves the achievable tradeoff between performance/power and quality. The ACA adder achieves approximately 30% power reduction versus the conventional pipelined adder at the relaxed accuracy requirement.