Abstract

In this talk, the concept of energy-quality (EQ) scalable systems is introduced and explored, as novel design dimension to scale down energy in integrated systems for the Internet of Things (IoT). EQ-scalable systems explicitly trade off energy and quality at different levels of abstraction (“vertically”), and sub-systems (“horizontally”), creating new opportunities to improve energy efficiency for a given task and expected “quality”. The concept of quality slack, a taxonomy of techniques to trade off energy and quality, and a general EQ-scalable architecture are introduced. The generality of the EQ-scaling concept is shown through several examples, ranging from logic to analog circuits, to memories and Analog-Digital Converters. Challenges, opportunities and expected energy gains are discussed to gain an understanding of the potential of the EQ-scalable integrated circuits and systems. Ultimately, EQ scalable systems are expected to substantially improve the energy efficiency of systems for IoT, compensating the limited energy gains that will be offered by technology and voltage scaling in the decade ahead.

Bio: Massimo Alioto is Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, where he leads the Green IC group and the Integrated Circuits and Embedded Systems area (60+ people). He has also held positions at the University of Siena, Intel Labs – CRL (2013), University of Michigan – Ann Arbor (2011-2012), University of California – Berkeley (2009-2011) and EPFL – Lausanne (2007).