Dynamically Reconfigurable Approximate Multiplier for Precision Control

This paper presents a novel architecture for an approximate multiplier (AxM) based on Leading One-Bit Approximation (LoBA), aimed at enhancing error-resilient applications through a quality-configurable multipliers (QCMs) approach. The proposed DR-LoBA design is a statically and dynamically reconfigurable LoBA multiplier that offers flexibility and adaptability to varying application requirements. Featuring 16 approximation levels, it achieves significant power savings of 13.2% to 72% compared to precise multipliers with the same bit-width when tested with random inputs. On average, DR-LoBA delivers 27% greater precision when compared to state-of-art truncation-based reconfigurable multiplier across all precision levels. When performed in an actual application using the Filtered-x Least Mean Square (FXLMS) filter in active noise cancellation, our DR-LoBA multiplier reduces power consumption by 7.6% to 42.7% by varying the precision during the process while maintaining a noise reduction level of just 0.11 to 1.94dB lower than the full-precision system.