AMNESIAC: Amnesic Automatic Computer

ABSTRACT

Due to imbalances in technology scaling, the energy consumption of data storage and communication by far exceeds the energy consumption of actual data production, i.e., computation. As a consequence, recomputing data can become more energy efficient than storing and retrieving precomputed data. At the same time, recomputation can relax the pressure on the memory hierarchy and the communication bandwidth. This study hence assesses the energy efficiency prospects of trading computation for communication. We introduce an illustrative proof-of-concept design, identify practical limitations, and provide design guidelines.

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