MIT 6.S194/IAP 2017: Error-Efficient Computing

(How to Exploit Failure for Speed and Battery Life)

Course Outline and Grading Rubric:

The course prerequisites, outline, and grading rubric.

Intended Learning Outcomes:

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

  1. Describe examples of computing systems and applications that exploit tolerance of errors in their inputs, in their algorithm operations, and in their outputs.

  2. Use hardware based on the low-power ARM Cortex-M0, OLED displays, micromirror-based (DLP) pico-projectors, and open-source software tools developed at MIT to illustrate examples of error-efficiency in existing systems, and to propose extensions of the hardware and software tools introduced for new system designs or applications.
  3. Differentiate between precision, accuracy, and reliability, to describe the role they play in numerical computations, and to apply these concepts to analysis and design of computing systems where precision/accuracy/reliability matter.

Each participant in the course receives hardware to be used and modified during the sessions. 

Course hardware kit and booklet

Course hardware kit and booklet

The hardware and development of the course is funded by MIT-SUTD Collaboration Office and by an equipment, software, and software license donation from the ARM University Program.

The course design was refined in Spring 2015 during the MIT Kaufman Teaching Program

Official MIT Course Website

 http://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/6/ia17/6.S194/