Energy-Efficient Dot Product Computation Using A Switched Analog Circuit Architecture

In this paper, we present switched analog circuit (SAC), a new circuit architecture, to implement an energy-efficient mixed-signal dot product (DP) kernel for machine learning and signal processing applications. SAC operates by fast switching the analog inputs to output via variable width digital pulses. The output accuracy and energy consumption of SAC is analyzed and verified for an average and Gaussian blur filter. Simulations in a commercial 130 nm process for a 120 x 120 image show energy savings of 19x-to-32x compared to a digital implementation for signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of 30 dB-to-24 dB, respectively.