Degrading Precision Arithmetic for Low Power Signal Processing

Abstract—Sometimes reducing the power dissipation of re-source constrained electronic systems, such as those built for deep-space probes or for wearable devices is a top priority. In signal processing, it is possible to have an acceptable quality of the signal even introducing some errors. In this work, we analyze two methods to degrade the precision of arithmetic operations in DSP to save power. The first method is based on disabling the lower (least-significant) portion of the datapath by clock-gating and forcing zeros. The second method is based on lowering the supply voltage and re-designing the carry-chains in the datapath to adapt to the increased delays. I