Hardware-Efficient Posit Architecture: Regime Optimization for Resource-Constrained Applications
摘要
This research explores an optimized numeric representation of real numbers using the posit number format for computing systems, resulting in improved PPA (power, performance, area) without compromising precision. A novel posit number system with an optimized range of values for ’regime bits’ and a ’precomputed data extractor’ with half-unit-biased (HUB) format is proposed. This system matches the precision and dynamic range of the IEEE-754 format. The resulting posit number system is implemented for addition and multiplication, and their performance is analyzed. Comparative analysis with traditional posit implementations reveals significant resource efficiency with the precomputed data extractor achieving a 26.2% reduction in cell count compared with the leading 1/0 detector. Evaluations demonstrate that the proposed posit system maintains robust accuracy across dynamic ranges, achieving high precision in moderate scenarios while reducing relative error in extreme ranges. Experimental results indicate that the proposed posit adder design achieves a 14.67% area reduction and 20.12% power savings, with reduced switching activity, compared to the original posit system. These outcomes position the proposed posit system as an efficient, scalable solution for resource-constrained numerical computations. A head-to-head comparison across the complete semi-custom physical design flow demonstrates that the proposed design outperforms the existing hardware structure in terms of power efficiency and reduced hardware overhead.