Modern Asynchronous Circuits:
Applications, Design and Analysis
Instructor
Radu Negulescu
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
McGill University, Montreal, Canada
www.macs.ece.mcgill.ca/~radu
Tutorial Presentation
For various reasons, asynchronous circuits are making a come-back.
Removing
a design constraint, in this case the global clocking, can offer performance
advantages and alternative solutions to design problems. Some advantages
(low-power and low-EMI, at small area overhead) have been demonstrated
to the
stage of commercial application, and asynchrony is expected to offer
solutions
for various other problems in high-speed and system-on-chip designs.
At the same time, asynchronous circuits constitute good examples
of systems
that have several discrete-state components operating in parallel
and
communicating by common events. Such systems have many applications,
from
communication protocols to work flows in a factory. Methods developed
for
asynchronous circuits give insight into the behavior of such systems
in general,
and into low-level digital circuit behavior in particular.
This introductory course presents novel analysis and design techniques
that treat
digital systems from an asynchronous point of view, and uses examples
of
modern asynchronous circuit designs to illustrate the concepts.
Outline
Introduction. Asynchronous applications.
A brief account of current asynchronous circuits applications, as
well as the main
mechanisms for achieving power economy, speed gains, and failure-free
on-chip
communication.
Specification and analysis of asynchronous behaviors.
Signal transition graphs, state machines, and trace-based modeling
of low-level
digital circuit behavior. Refinement-based analysis.
Asynchronous logic components.
Boolean gates in the presence of hazards. C-elements. Relative delay
constraints.
Handshaking protocols.
Two-phase, four-phase, and ASP* handshaking. Delay-insensitivity
and speed-independence.
Modern asynchronous circuits.
Single-rail handshake circuits. High-speed pipelines. STG to custom
cells design
flow. Implementations using standard cells. Tools for asynchronous
synthesis.
Intended audience:
Researchers and practitioners interested in high-performance integrated
circuits
and the fundaments of concurrency modeling.
Author Presentation
Radu Negulescu is Assistant Professor in the Department of
Electrical and
Computer Engineering at McGill University. He has a M.Sc. from "Politehnica"
University of Bucharest (Automation and Computers), a M.Sc. from Georgia
Institute of Technology (School of Electrical Engineering), and a
Ph.D. from
University of Waterloo (Department of Computer Science). His primary
research
interests include concurrency theory, asynchronous circuits, formal
verification,
system on chip architectures, object-oriented models, and design automation
software. He is the recipient of a Canada Foundation for Innovation
New
Opportunities Award, a research chair award from FCAR/Quebec, and
research
grants from NSERC/Canada, Micronet, and industry. He is author of
several
publications in concurrency theory, circuit design, and formal verification,
including a nomination for the best paper award at the International
Symposium
on Advanced Research in Asynchronous Circuits and Systems, 2001. He
has
delivered a lecture and laboratory module in asynchronous design within
BridgeCamp 2000, an intensive VLSI design course for the industry.
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