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Section: New Software and Platforms

ID-Fix

Keywords: Energy efficiency - Embedded systems - Analytical accuracy evaluation - Fixed-point arithmetic - Accuracy optimization - Dynamic range evaluation - Code optimisation

Scientific Description

The different techniques proposed by the team for fixed-point conversion are implemented on the ID.Fix infrastructure. The application is described with a C code using floating-point data types and different pragmas, used to specify parameters (dynamic, input/output word-length, delay operations) for the fixed-point conversion. This tool determines and optimizes the fixed-point specification and then, generates a C code using different fixed-point data types. The infrastructure is made-up of two main modules corresponding to the fixed-point conversion (ID.Fix-Conv) and the accuracy evaluation (ID.Fix-Eval).

Functional Description

ID.Fix focuses on computational accuracy and can provide an optimised specification using fixed point arithmetic from a C source code with floating point data types. Fixed point arithmetic is very widely used in embedded systems as it provides better performance and is much more energy efficient. ID.Fix used an analytical model of the software code, which means it can explore more solutions and thereby produce much more efficient code than classical simulation-based tools.