XMeter: Finding Approximable Functions and Predicting Their Accuracy
XMeter: Finding Approximable Functions and Predicting Their Accuracy
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DOI：
10.1109/tc.2020.3005083
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发表时间：
2021-07
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Riad Akram;Shantanu Mandal;A. Muzahid
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Riad Akram;Shantanu Mandal;A. Muzahid
近似计算在提高计算系统的效率方面具有重要的潜力。文献中提出了许多技术。实际上，它们都要求程序员要么对特定类型代码区域的每个实例进行详尽的实验，以找到近似的代码区域，要么手动注释这些区域。这两种方法都容易出错，并可能导致错失机会。因此，我们提出XMeter来自动查找和量化近似代码区域。首先，XMeter使用一种基于内存位置更新的新算法静态分析应用程序代码。此外，XMeter提供了一个基于深度学习的预测器，用于在近似不同代码区域时预测应用程序的准确性。我们提出的方案不需要程序员对所有可能的错误率和近似技术类型进行详尽的实验。此外，该方案不需要任何领域知识，也不特定于任何近似技术。因此，它具有足够的通用性，适用于任何近似技术。我们使用LLVM开发XMeter，并试验了10个应用程序。我们分析了43个近似函数，发现其中21个具有高度的容错性。我们使用4种著名的近似技术验证了我们的结果，并表明XMeter可以准确地预测应用程序的准确性。
Approximate computing has significant potential to improve the efficiency of a computing system. Numerous techniques have been proposed in literature. Virtually, all of them require programmers to either experiment with every instance of a specific type of code region exhaustively to find approximable code regions or annotate such regions manually. Both approaches are error-prone and can lead to missed opportunities. Therefore, we propose XMeter to automatically find and quantify approximable code regions. XMeter, first, analyzes the application code statically using a novel algorithm based on memory location updates. Also, XMeter provides a deep learning-based predictor to predict the accuracy of the application when different code regions are approximated. Our proposed scheme does not require the programmer to experiment exhaustively for all possible error rates and types of approximation techniques. Moreover, the scheme does not require any domain knowledge and is not specific to any approximation technique. Therefore, it is general enough to be applicable for any approximation technique. We developed XMeter using LLVM and experimented with 10 applications. We analyzed 43 approximable functions and found 21 to be highly tolerant of errors. We validated our results using 4 well-known approximation techniques and showed that XMeter can predict an application’s accuracy accurately.