Area and Delay Efficient Adders for Inexact Computing Implementation

Recently, inexact computing has gained a lot of interest in modern computational systems since it can improve the use of resources particularly when the exact precision is not critical. Here, the proposed 24-bit Approximate Ripple Carry Adder (ARCA) features a hybrid design based on simplified logic operations that embed approximate computation for LSBs and exact computation for MSBs. This method significantly reduces the power consumption, footprint, and latency of traditional precision adders. Extensive simulations reveal that ARCA outperforms its competitors with regard to resource savings while preserving almost all the computational precision. The results clearly indicate that our approach reduces power consumption by 27%, delay by 29%, and area by 25% compared to traditional ripple carry adders. The above results demonstrate the effectiveness of ARCA in many resource-constrained applications, including embedded systems, digital signal processing, machine learning, and multimedia.