Behavioral synthesis of asynchronous circuits

Sune Fallgaard Nielsen

AbstractThis thesis presents a method for behavioral synthesis of asynchronous circuits, which aims at providing a synthesis flow which uses and tranfers methods from synchronous circuits to asynchronous circuits. We move the synchronous behavioral synthesis abstraction into the asynchronous handshake domain by introducing a computation model, which resembles the synchronous datapath and control architecture, but which is completely asynchronous. The model contains the possibility for isolating some or all of the functional units by locking their respective inputs and outputs while the functional unit is idle. This reduces unnecessary switching activity in the individual functional units and therefore the energy consumption of the entire circuit. A collection of behavioral synthesis algorithms have been developed allowing the designer to perform time and power constrained design space exploration. The datapath and control architecture is then expressed in the Balsa-language, and using syntax directed compilation a corresponding handshake circuit implementation (and eventually a layout) is produced.
TypePh.D. thesis [Academic thesis]
Year2005
PublisherInformatics and Mathematical Modelling, Technical University of Denmark, DTU
AddressRichard Petersens Plads, Building 321, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby
SeriesIMM-PHD-2005-144
Note
Electronic version(s)[pdf] [ps]
BibTeX data [bibtex]
IMM Group(s)Computer Science & Engineering