New Framework For Programming Unreliable Chips

rtoz writes "For handling the future unreliable chips, a research group at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has developed a new programming framework that enables software developers to specify when errors may be tolerable. The system then calculates the probability that the software will perform as it's intended. As transistors get smaller, they also become less reliable. This reliability won't be a major issue in some cases. For example, if few pixels in each frame of a high-definition video are improperly decoded, viewers probably won't notice — but relaxing the requirement of perfect decoding could yield gains in speed or energy efficiency."

Re:godzilla

[n6mod]

I was hoping someone would mention James Mickens' epic rant. [usenix.org]

Similar Idea to EnerJ Language

[MetaDFF]

The idea of fault tolerable computing is similar to the EnerJ programming language being developed at the University of Washington for power savings The Language of Good Enough Computing [ieee.org]

The jist of the idea is that the programmer can specify which variables need to be exact and which variables can be approximate. The approximate variables would then be stored a low refresh RAM which is more prone to errors to save power, while the precise variables would be stored a higher power memory which would be error free.

The example they gave was calculating the average shade of grey in a large image of 1000 by 1000 pixels. The running total could be held in an approximate variable since the error incurred by adding one pixel incorrectly out of a million would be small, while the control loop variable would be accurate since you wouldn't want your loop to overflow.