Asynchronous Data-Driven Circuit Synthesis

Sam Taylor, Doug Edwards, Luis A. Plana and Luis A. Tarazona D.

Abstract

A method is described for synthesising asynchronous circuits based on the Hands hake Circuit paradigm but employing a data-driven, rather than a control-driven, style. This approach attempts to c ombine the performance advantages of data-driven asynchronous design styles with the handshake circuit style of construction use d in existing syntax-directed synthesis. The method is demonstrated on a significant design - a 32-bit microprocessor. This example shows that the data-driven circuit style provides better performance than control-driven synthesised circuits. The paper extends previous reported work by illustrating how conditional execut ion, oft-cited as a problem for data-driven descriptions, is handled within the system, and by a more detailed analysis of the design example.

PDF - Author's version (220K). IEEE Copyright