EP2404415A1 - Circuits for soft logical functions - Google Patents
Circuits for soft logical functionsInfo
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- EP2404415A1 EP2404415A1 EP10749220A EP10749220A EP2404415A1 EP 2404415 A1 EP2404415 A1 EP 2404415A1 EP 10749220 A EP10749220 A EP 10749220A EP 10749220 A EP10749220 A EP 10749220A EP 2404415 A1 EP2404415 A1 EP 2404415A1
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Classifications
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
- H03K—PULSE TECHNIQUE
- H03K19/00—Logic circuits, i.e. having at least two inputs acting on one output; Inverting circuits
- H03K19/02—Logic circuits, i.e. having at least two inputs acting on one output; Inverting circuits using specified components
- H03K19/173—Logic circuits, i.e. having at least two inputs acting on one output; Inverting circuits using specified components using elementary logic circuits as components
- H03K19/1733—Controllable logic circuits
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06G—ANALOGUE COMPUTERS
- G06G7/00—Devices in which the computing operation is performed by varying electric or magnetic quantities
- G06G7/12—Arrangements for performing computing operations, e.g. operational amplifiers
- G06G7/122—Arrangements for performing computing operations, e.g. operational amplifiers for optimisation, e.g. least square fitting, linear programming, critical path analysis, gradient method
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06G—ANALOGUE COMPUTERS
- G06G7/00—Devices in which the computing operation is performed by varying electric or magnetic quantities
- G06G7/12—Arrangements for performing computing operations, e.g. operational amplifiers
- G06G7/14—Arrangements for performing computing operations, e.g. operational amplifiers for addition or subtraction
Definitions
- This specification relates to statistical processing circuits, including for example, circuits that perform soft logical functions.
- Statistical inference makes use of statistics to draw inferences based on incomplete or inaccurate information. It may be useful in applications where information needs to be extracted from an observation of data that has been distorted in some way.
- data transmitted over a communication channel for example, in the form of radio signals, may be distorted by noise, interference, and/or reflections.
- a receiver may employ statistical inference techniques to obtain and process soft (probabilistic) information in order to recover the original transmitted data from the distorted signals.
- the processing of soft information may be implemented in the analog domain, for example, by use of analog continuous-time statistical processing circuits that perform soft logical functions such as soft Equals and soft XOR.
- analog circuits are constructed using traditional translinear circuits (e.g., summers and multipliers) in which probability distributions as represented by current signals may be summed and/or multiplied in the linear domain.
- translinear circuits are configured by exploiting the exponential I-V characteristics of particular types of transistors, for example, metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) operating in the sub-threshold region or bipolar junction transistors (BJTs).
- MOSFETs metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors
- BJTs bipolar junction transistors
- a circuit implementing a soft logical processing network comprises an interconnection of analog processing elements including soft logic gates, the soft logic gates comprising one or more soft Equals gates.
- Each soft Equals gate comprises a plurality of circuit parts, each part including an input configured to accept a voltage signal representation of a soft logical quantity, and a conversion section configured to convert the accepted voltage representation to a corresponding current signal representation of the soft logical quantity.
- Each soft Equals gate further comprises a signal combination part coupled to the conversion sections of the plurality of circuit parts and configured to form a signal representation of the sum of the soft logical quantities represented in the current signals, and an output for providing the signal formed by the signal combination part.
- the voltage signal representations each comprise a substantially log based representation of a corresponding probability value.
- the voltage signal representations each comprise a substantially log based representation of a likelihood ratio value.
- the input is configured to receive a differential voltage signal representation of the soft logical quantity on a plurality of signal lines.
- Each signal line is coupled to a corresponding transistor in the conversion section configured to operate in an above threshold mode, the transistors providing a differential current that is substantially proportional to the soft logical quantity represented in the received differential voltage signal.
- the transistors providing the differential current are coupled to a current regulation element to regulate a sum of the currents provided by the transistors.
- Each transistor is coupled to the current regulation element through a resistive element.
- the resistive elements are controllable to affect an input to output characteristic of the soft Equal gate.
- the input to output characteristic includes a linearity characteristic.
- Each resistive element comprises a MOS transistor configured to act in a triode region.
- the signal combination part includes a signal conductor coupling the conversion sections of the conversion sections and providing a combined differential current signal that is substantially equal to the sum of the differential currents provided by the conversion sections.
- the signal combination part includes a current to voltage conversion element, and the signal representation of the sum of the soft logical quantities comprises a differential voltage representation.
- the signal combination part further comprises a cascode section coupled between the signal conductor coupling the conversion sections and the current to voltage conversion element.
- the input is configured to receive an M-ary voltage signal representation of the soft logical quantity on a plurality of signal lines, the soft logical quantity representing a distribution over a plurality classes.
- the soft logical processing network implements a factor graph.
- the soft logic gates further comprise one or more soft XOR gates, each soft XOR gate coupled to one or more of the soft Equals gates.
- a circuit implementing a soft logical processing network comprises an interconnection of analog processing elements including soft logic gates, the soft logic gates comprising one or more soft logic gates.
- Each soft logic gate comprises a plurality of circuit parts, each part including an input configured to accept a voltage signal representation of a soft logical quantity, and a conversion section configured to use the accepted voltage representation form a current signal that depends on the soft logical quantity.
- the conversion section is configured to convert the accepted voltage representation to provide a corresponding current signal representation of the soft logical quantity.
- the conversion section is configured to combine the accepted voltage representation and the current signal representation provided by another of the circuit parts to provide a current signal representation.
- the soft logic gate further comprises a signal combination part coupled to the conversion section of one or more of the circuit parts to form a current signal representation of an output of the soft logic gate.
- the voltage signal representations each comprise a substantially log based representation of a corresponding probability value.
- the voltage signal representations each comprise a substantially log based representation of a likelihood ratio value.
- the output of the soft logic gate includes a logical function of the soft logical quantity.
- the logical function is selected from the group consisting of an AND function, an OR function, a NAND function, and an XOR function
- At least one of the soft logic gates is configured to implement a gate selected from the group consisting of a soft AND gate, a soft OR gate, a soft NAND gate, and a soft XOR gate.
- At least one of the soft logic gates is configurable to implement a gate selected from the group consisting of at least two of a soft AND gate, a soft OR gate, a soft NAND gate, and a soft XOR gate.
- the input is configured to receive a differential voltage signal representation of the soft logical quantity on a plurality of signal lines.
- Each signal line is coupled to a corresponding transistor in the conversion section configured to operate in an above threshold mode.
- the transistors of the first circuit part are configured to provide a differential current that is substantially proportional to the soft logical quantity represented in the received differential voltage signal.
- the transistors of the second circuit part are configured to provide a differential current that is substantially proportional to a product of the soft logical quantity represented in the received differential voltage signal and a quantity represented by the current signal provided by the another of the circuit parts.
- the signal combination part is configured to form a current signal representation substantially proportional to a product of the accepted soft logical quantities, whereby the logic gate implements a soft XOR function.
- Each conversion section comprises a differential amplifier.
- At least some of the differential amplifiers each include a configurable resistive elements that controls a characteristic of the differential amplifier.
- the circuit further comprises a plurality of memory elements that provide the voltage signal representations of a soft logical quantities accepted by at least some of the soft logic gates.
- a memory comprises a plurality of electrical storage elements, each electrical storage elements carrying a respective storage value.
- the memory further comprises a plurality of conversion elements, each conversion element being coupled to a respective electrical storage element for selectively converting the corresponding storage value to a current signal.
- a current combination element is used for combining the current signals to form an output signal.
- aspects may include one or more of the following features.
- Each conversion element includes a current converter and a switching element.
- the switching element is configured to be activated by a selection signal.
- the memory further comprises a control circuit for generating the selection signal according to an input.
- the input includes a specification of a subset of the electrical storage elements to be accessed.
- the plurality of electrical storage elements include a plurality of charge storage elements each carrying an electrical charge.
- Each charge storage element includes a capacitive element.
- Each conversion element includes a transistor-based circuit element for selectively converting a respective electrical charge to a corresponding current signal.
- the output signal provides a continuous valued encoding of the combination of the current signals.
- the output signal represents a combination of the selected storage values.
- the output signal includes a signal encoded by differential currents.
- a memory including a group of electrical storage elements, each electrical storage elements carrying a respective storage values; a group of conversion elements, each conversion element being coupled to a respective electrical storage element for selectively converting the corresponding storage value to a current signal; and a current combination element for combining the current signals to form an output signal.
- Embodiments may include one or more of the following features.
- Each conversion element may include a current converter and a switching element.
- the switching element may be configured to be activated by a selection signal.
- the memory may further include a control circuit for generating the selection signal according to an input.
- the input includes a specification of a subset of the electrical storage elements to be accessed.
- the group of electrical storage elements may include a plurality of charge storage elements each carrying an electrical charge.
- Each charge storage element may include a capacitive element (e.g., a pair of capacitors).
- Each conversion element may include a transistor-based circuit element (e.g., a differential amplifier) for selectively converting a respective electrical charge to a corresponding current signal.
- the output signal of the memory may provide a continuous valued encoding of the combination of the current signals. In some examples, it represents a combination of the selected storage values. In some examples, the output signal includes a signal encoded by differential currents.
- FIG. 1 is a schematic circuit diagram of one embodiment of a soft Equals gate.
- FIG. 2 is a schematic circuit diagram of a second embodiment of a soft Equals gate.
- FIG. 3 is a schematic circuit diagram of a third embodiment of a soft Equals gate.
- FIG. 4 is a schematic circuit diagram of a fourth embodiment of a soft Equals gate.
- FIG. 5 is a schematic circuit diagram of a fifth embodiment of a soft Equals gate.
- FIG. 6 is a schematic circuit diagram of one embodiment of a soft XOR gate.
- FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a memory.
- FIG. 8 is a schematic circuit diagram of one embodiment of the memory of FIG. 7.
- FIG. 9 is a diagram of embodiments of other types of soft gates.
- Networks of processing elements that implement logical functions for values represented in analog (e.g., substantially continuous) form can be used, for example, in various probabilistic, statistical or belief based processing approaches, which for the sake of discussion in this specification, are referred to a soft logical processing approaches with the values represented being referred to as soft logical quantities.
- the analog values can represent probabilities or related quantities such as likelihoods, likelihood ratios, beliefs, or intermediate values in computations involving such values,.
- Soft logical processing may be useful in many applications, including, for example, for implementing belief propagation (one form of which is sometimes referred to as the "sum-product" algorithm) that operates by passing messages as analog quantities on a probabilistic graphical model (e.g., factor graphs).
- Circuits for continuous-time soft logical processing can be built using analog components.
- probability distributions are represented in such circuits by electrical currents or voltages that can be processed in the linear domain (i.e., using substantially proportional relationships between probabilities and voltage and/or current values) by addition and/or multiplication operations implemented in a network of analog processing elements.
- soft logic gates or “soft gates”
- soft logic gates which accept representations of multiple soft probabilities (e.g., in one analog representation) and output a representation of the result as a soft probabilities (e.g., in the same or a different representation).
- the analog signals inputs and outputs of the circuit elements correspond approximately to the log likelihood ratio (LLR) representation of probability distributions.
- LLR log likelihood ratio
- Other compressive and/or sigmoidal transformations of probabilities can also be used.
- soft logical quantities are represented as using multiple analog signals, for instance, as differential currents or differential voltages using to signal links for each quantity, or in some examples, using greater than two signal links.
- the following description provides some examples of soft gate circuits that are configured using this approach.
- a three-variable soft Equals gate performs the following function:
- the two input variable x and y may represent two independent observers, each of which yields an estimate for output variable z .
- a soft gate in a factor graph is bidirectional. More specifically, the edges leading into or away from the soft gate is in fact bi-directional, and a bi-directional soft gate over 3 variables can be implemented using 3 uni-directional soft gates, with each gate accepting two input variables to generate an output variable.
- LLR x can be re-written as:
- LLR 2 LLR x + LLR y (4)
- the LLR of output variable Z can be obtained by summing the LLRs of input variables x and y .
- the LLR of the output variable Z can be obtained by summing the individual LLRs of the observers. This can be implemented using summation circuits in which the circuit inputs and output represent (or approximate) the input LLRs and output LLR, respectively.
- FIG. 1 shows one example of a circuit structure 100 operable to perform a four- variable (i.e., three-input) soft Equals function using current summation.
- a four-variable soft Equals gate would involve computing all four of the variables, each using the other three variables. These four computations can be respectively implemented in a set of 4 circuits, each circuit accepting three variables to generate the fourth variable.
- the examples illustrated below implements one of the four circuits.
- the other three circuits can be configured using similar techniques but changing the input and output variables.
- the circuit 100 includes three differential pair circuits 110, 120, and 130, each of which accepts a respective input signal (in the form of differential voltages) to form a signal (in the form of differential currents) that is substantially proportional to the input.
- a differential voltage signal Av 1 i.e., V 1 + - vf
- Ai 1 i.e., Z 1 + - zf
- the current signals of all three circuits 110, 120, and 130 are then summed to generate a circuit output AI OUT ⁇ (Av 1 + Av 2 + Av 3 ) .
- each of the three input differential voltage signal may represent (e.g., has an amplitude that is scaled to) an individual input LLR.
- the output ⁇ I ⁇ UT ma y represent an output LLR that is the sum of the three input LLRs as shown in equation (6).
- the circuit 100 when configured to accept input and output both in the LLR form, the circuit 100 effectively operates as a soft Equals gate by current summation without necessarily requiring multiplication.
- This may offer several advantages over traditional soft Equals gate configured using translinear approach.
- the present approach allows for increased fan- in (i.e., the number of inputs for a logical gate) without necessarily having to increase supply voltage V DD or the number of elements (e.g., transistors) to be used in the circuit.
- some translinear soft Equals gates may require designers to either 1) stack transistors up in voltage or 2) fold over using current mirrors in order to add fan-in.
- the number of transistors needed grows faster in the translinear approach than the present approach.
- current mirrors can be a bottleneck for speed, for example, when there are small currents due to their capacitance.
- Another advantage of the present approach relates to the simplicity of the hardware configuration because current summing is effectively one of the most inexpensive and accurate analog operations available.
- soft Equals gates are prevalent in statistical processing (e.g., factor graph based processing)
- efficient design of soft Equals gates allows for improved overall circuit efficiency.
- a third advantage is the close approximation of actual transfer function of the soft Equals gate to the designed mathematical transfer function (i.e. a sum of LLRs), because currents add essentially linearly in the circuit with Kirckoff s Current Law (KCL).
- FIG. 2 shows another example of a circuit structure 200 operable to perform a four- variable soft Equals function.
- the circuit 200 instead of outputting a differential current signal AI OUT , the circuit 200 uses a pair of resistive loads R to form a differential voltage signal ⁇ V OUT representing the output LLR.
- the three input LLRs are again respectively represented by differential voltage signals Av 1 , Av 2 ,and ⁇ v 3 .
- FIG. 3 shows a third example of a circuit structure 300 operable to perform a four- variable soft Equals function.
- the circuit 300 accepts three differential voltage signals representing three input LLRs to generate an output differential voltage signal representing the output LLR.
- the use of a cascode structure 340 at the output terminal may, in some applications, improve certain aspects of circuit performance, such as improve input-output isolation and increase circuit bandwidth.
- FIGs. 1-3 are schematic diagrams of circuits (configured using analog components) that are operable as soft Equals gates.
- circuits configured using analog components
- circuits of similar structure including, for example, circuits of similar structure to the ones described above but having additional active and/or non-active circuit elements (such as resistors and transistors).
- FIG. 4 shows a variant of the circuit structure 100 shown in FIG. 1.
- each one of the differential pair circuits e.g., circuit 410 includes a pair of fixed resistors ⁇ 1 and R 2 respectively coupled to transistors T 1 and T 2 .
- the presence of the resistors in the differential pair circuit increases the linearity of the circuit transfer function in certain applications.
- Such modification can be similarly applied to the circuit structures shown in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3.
- FIG. 5 shows another example of a circuit 500 operable to perform a four- variable soft Equals function.
- each one of the differential pair circuits includes a pair of configurable resistive elements, such as R 1 and R 2 respectively coupled to transistors T 1 and T 2 .
- the configurable resistive elements may be passive resistors (e.g., variable resistors), or alternatively, be active elements that function essentially like resistors.
- an active element suitable for use here is a MOS transistor biased in the triode region acting as a resistor.
- the configurable resistive elements R 1 and R 2 may have variable I-V characteristic that is controllable by external signals, for example, signals provided by a controller 540.
- the configurability of the resistive elements enables the effective transfer function of the differential pair circuit and/or the entire circuit 500 to be tuned as desired.
- LLR 2 represents the LLR of variable Z having value k with respect to the reference m
- LLR 1 ⁇ represents the LLR of thez-th observer having value A: with respect to the reference m .
- equation (9) can be implemented by summation, for example, using circuits similar to the examples of FIG. 1-5 to obtain the LLR 2 for each one of the m — ⁇ number of k values.
- a binary XOR gate in a fully digital circuit performs the mod-2 addition function.
- a three-variable soft XOR gate may perform the following function:
- LLR 2 2 ⁇ tanh "1 ((tanh(LLR x 12) ⁇ tanh(LLR x 12)) (16)
- FIG. 6 illustrates one example of a circuit 700 operable to approximate the theoretical soft XOR function shown in equation (16).
- the gate 700 accepts two differential input signals ⁇ x and Ay (both in the voltage form) to generate an output differential signal ⁇ I OUT (in the current form).
- the gate 700 includes two input sections.
- the first input section includes a differential amplifier 710 that accepts a first differential voltage input ⁇ x to form a differential current signal Ai 1 (i.e., Z 1 + - zf ) that approximates atanh (or sigmoid) function of the first input, i.e., Ai 1 ⁇ tanh( ⁇ x) .
- the second input section includes a pair of differential amplifiers 720 and 730, each of which accepts a second differential voltage input Ay .
- the outputs of the pair of differential amplifiers are connected such that the differential output AI OUT (i.e., P 1 - Z 2 -) of this circuit 700 approximates a tanh (or sigmoid) function of the second input, i.e., Ai ou ⁇ ⁇ tanh( ⁇ y) .
- each of the transistors in the second input section also receives at its source terminal a respective one of the differential currents i ⁇ ,i ⁇ generated by the differential amplifier 710.
- the differential output AI OUT of the circuit 700 is also scaled by Ai 1 , which gives,
- the gate output AI OUT can also be viewed as the following:
- each of the differential amplifiers 710, 720, and 730 of the circuit includes a pair of variable/controllable resistive elements (such as R 1 andi? 2 ) whose resistivity may affect the transfer function of the differential amplifier.
- the actual circuit transfer function may be configured to be a close approximation of the theoretical soft XOR function in the LLR domain.
- G m transfer function of the differential amplifier 710 becomes essentially a capped linear function.
- the resistive elements in the gate circuit may take various forms, including for example, passive resistors and transistors in certain configurations that may function as resistors.
- the soft XOR gate described herein may also be configured in many alternative ways.
- One example is a variant of circuit 700 that, instead of producing a differential current output signal, generates a differential voltage output signal by using a pair of resistive loads at the output terminals.
- N-variable soft XOR can be decomposed into as a chain (or a tree) of core modules, each core module being a 3-variable soft XOR that produces an output signal based on two input signals.
- An N-variable soft XOR may be configured to generate an output differential signal representing the LLR x by connecting N-I input sections in a cascade fashion, where each input section accepts a differential voltage input representing a corresponding input LLR x (l ⁇ i ⁇ N ).
- the fan-in of a soft XOR circuit can be efficiently increased by introducing additional 3 -variable soft XOR gates into the circuit.
- FIG. 9 shows a diagram of a core circuit that can be reconfigured to implement different soft gates.
- the circuit includes four output leads, each having a current corresponding to a multiplication of a pair of inputs (i.e.,
- the output of a soft gate can be obtained by combining the proper set of output leads.
- the Z + of a NAND gate can be formed by connecting the X + Y ⁇ ,X ⁇ Y + ,X ⁇ Y ⁇ leads, and the Z ⁇ of a NAND gate can be formed by the
- One application of the soft gates described herein relates to data storage, for example, for retrieving storage values from an analog memory.
- soft Equals gate makes use of current summation in the LLR domain. In the memory application, this can be done by forming current signals to represent the storage values of a selected set of memory cells and then summing the current signals to generate an output (the output may be further provided to a soft XOR gate for error correction).
- FIG. 7 shows one example of a memory device 900 coupled with a soft Equals gate for retrieving storage values.
- the memory device 900 includes a set of storage elements such as 91 OA-C each configured for carrying a respective storage value.
- the storage elements may be capacitive elements (e.g., capacitors) or other type of energy storage elements (e.g., electro-magnetic elements).
- Each storage element may be configured to be a memory cell.
- the memory cells store analog values that represent the messages going between soft logical gates as part of a belief propagation computation. Further discussion of this application is provided in U.S. Provisional Patent Application Serial No. 61/293,999, titled "Belief Propagation Processor," filed January 11, 2010, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application Serial No. 61/156,721, titled “Belief Propagation Processor,” filed March 2, 2009.
- a conversion element 920 is configured to convert the corresponding storage value to a current signal. Subsequently, the current signals representing the storage values of the selected storage elements are combined (e.g., summed) by a current combination circuit 930 (e.g., circuit including a common bus) to generate an output signal, which is effectively a soft Equal output of the selected storage values.
- a current combination circuit 930 e.g., circuit including a common bus
- each of the conversion element 920 includes a converter 920 (e.g., a transistor-based converter for transforming an electrical charge to a current signal) and a switch 924 for coupling the current signal to the current combination circuit 930.
- Each switch 924 may be further configured to be responsive to external control, for example, a selection signal provided by a controller 940 that specifies the physical addresses of the subset of storage elements 910 to be accessed in each read operation.
- the controller 940 may be configured to receive, in each read operation, a specification of a selected subset of storage elements to generate the selection signals to active the corresponding switches such that the current signals representing the storage values of the selected storage elements undergo the soft Equals operation.
- the memory device may be arranged into sub-sets of memory cells, for example, each subset residing in a distinct physical region and being coupled to a respective common bus that can perform the soft Equals operation on the readout values of the subset of memory cells.
- the subset of memory cells that need to be fed to the same soft Equals gate will be coupled to a shared hardware (e.g., a common bus).
- the controller 940 may have a subset identifier that, in each read operation, directs to a predefined range of physical addresses of the corresponding subset of memory cells that provide inputs to a common soft Equals gate.
- the input stage of the soft Equals gates is incorporated into the memory to allow storage values of subsets of memories cells be retrieved via shared hardware components (e.g., common buses).
- shared hardware components e.g., common buses.
- the current signals from the 8 memory cells may be summed onto a single wire that effectively soft Equals the storage values to generate one output signal to be processed in a succeeding circuit (e.g., a soft XOR gate).
- a soft XOR gate As currents from many wires can be combined into one wire, less power will be consumed by memory access because fewer wires will need to be driven.
- FIG. 8 shows a detailed circuit diagram of one example of the memory cell 900.
- each storage element 101OA includes a pair of capacitors that carry storage values represented by differential voltages (or charges).
- the conversion element 1020A includes a differential amplifier switchably coupled to a current source 1050.
- a "read selection signal” activates the switch 1024A to couple the current source 1050A to the differential amplifier, which then converts the differential voltage representing the storage value into a differential current signal Ai 1 .
- the differential current signal is provided to the current combination circuit to be combined (e.g., summed) with other differential current signals to generate an output that is effective a soft Equals function of the selected storage values.
- Another application relates to soft error correction decoding, where the soft gates described herein may be used to perform functions that mirror the digital gates used in a digital decoder.
- Some examples of soft gates in error correction decoding is described in U.S. Patent Provisional Application Serial No. 61/156,721, titled “Signal Mapping," and in U.S. Provisional Patent Application Serial No. 61/293,999 , titled "Belief Propagation Processor.” The contents of the above application are incorporated herein by reference. 5 Alternative Embodiments
- circuit examples are illustrated as being configured to process input and output signals in the differential form. Note that circuits that process single-ended signals are also possible. In some applications, it may be useful to adopt differential signals in circuit design over single-ended signals. Advantages of differential signals may include, for example, a larger dynamic range for circuit operation and higher noise immunity (such as common mode rejection). For instance, if a constant noise is introduced to both wires of the differential input (or output), it is possible to design gate circuits that will ignore this constant additive factor and will only respond to the difference (the first order) between the signals on the two wires.
- noise immunity such as common mode rejection
- the same representation e.g., the LLR representation
- a soft-inference processor e.g., a soft decoder
- a gate circuit it is also possible for a gate circuit to take its input in one representation (e.g., in linear probability), and produce its output in another (e.g., in LLR).
- decoders that are configured based on bipartite graphs (e.g., a soft Equals gate always feeds a soft XOR gate and vice versa)
- a soft Equals gate that transforms from one representation to another (e.g., from probability to LLR) is matched with a soft XOR gate (or other constraint gate) that conducts the reverse transformation (e.g., from LLR to probability)
- the decoders would still perform the correct sequence of operations.
- This is also applicable to other factor-graph based inference processors besides decoders, and other soft gates besides soft Equals and soft XOR gates as long as there is a consistent representation at each point in the graph.
- the representation at each input/output terminal may not necessarily be exactly LLR representations.
- a decoder e.g., signal generated by a demapper circuit
- a slightly variation of the LLR representation may be used.
- a slightly non-linear mapping from LLR to voltage signals may perform better by compensating to some extent to the circuit non-idealities.
- the soft gates described above may be used in statistical inference applications where information needs to be extracted from an observation of data that has been distorted in some way. It may also be useful in applications where information is not certain due to incomplete data sets. It may also be useful in applications where differential information needs to be weighted by its relevance or statistical significance, for example, as in medical diagnosis.
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Abstract
Description
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Applications Claiming Priority (3)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
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US15673509P | 2009-03-02 | 2009-03-02 | |
US15679409P | 2009-03-02 | 2009-03-02 | |
PCT/US2010/025950 WO2010101941A1 (en) | 2009-03-02 | 2010-03-02 | Circuits for soft logical functions |
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CN (1) | CN102449969B (en) |
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US8633732B2 (en) | 2009-03-02 | 2014-01-21 | Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. | Circuits for soft logical functions |
TW201037529A (en) | 2009-03-02 | 2010-10-16 | David Reynolds | Belief propagation processor |
US9048830B2 (en) | 2009-03-02 | 2015-06-02 | David Reynolds | Circuits for soft logical functions |
US8458114B2 (en) | 2009-03-02 | 2013-06-04 | Analog Devices, Inc. | Analog computation using numerical representations with uncertainty |
US8972831B2 (en) | 2010-01-11 | 2015-03-03 | Analog Devices, Inc. | Belief propagation processor |
US8792602B2 (en) | 2010-02-22 | 2014-07-29 | Analog Devices, Inc. | Mixed signal stochastic belief propagation |
US9047153B2 (en) | 2010-02-22 | 2015-06-02 | Analog Devices, Inc. | Selective delay of data receipt in stochastic computation |
US10783972B2 (en) * | 2018-08-02 | 2020-09-22 | SK Hynix Inc. | NAND flash memory with reconfigurable neighbor assisted LLR correction with downsampling and pipelining |
US11062758B2 (en) * | 2018-09-19 | 2021-07-13 | SK Hynix Inc. | Memory system to process multiple word line failures with limited storage and method of operating such memory system |
CN113093622B (en) * | 2021-04-08 | 2022-06-07 | 中国人民解放军火箭军士官学校 | Interconnection formula simulation training emulation machine |
CN113805942A (en) * | 2021-08-23 | 2021-12-17 | 北京奕斯伟计算技术有限公司 | Processor core, processor and instruction processing method |
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US7209867B2 (en) * | 2002-10-15 | 2007-04-24 | Massachusetts Institute Of Technology | Analog continuous time statistical processing |
US7418468B2 (en) * | 2004-02-13 | 2008-08-26 | University Of Alberta | Low-voltage CMOS circuits for analog decoders |
WO2005104376A1 (en) * | 2004-04-20 | 2005-11-03 | Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. | Method to improve error reduction in a digital-to-analog converter and digital-to-analog converter in which this method is applied |
US7818653B2 (en) * | 2006-09-28 | 2010-10-19 | Sandisk Corporation | Methods of soft-input soft-output decoding for nonvolatile memory |
US7788312B2 (en) * | 2007-01-19 | 2010-08-31 | Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. | Apparatus and method for reducing errors in analog circuits while processing signals |
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WO2010101941A1 (en) | 2010-09-10 |
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