Asynchronous Circuit Design For Vlsi Signal Processing

Asynchronous Circuit Design for VLSI Signal Processing is a collection of research papers on recent advances in the area of specification, design and analysis of asynchronous circuits and systems. This interest in designing digital computing systems without a global clock is prompted by the ever growing difficulty in adopting global synchronization as the only efficient means to system timing. Asynchronous circuits and systems have long held interest for circuit designers and researchers alike because of the inherent challenge involved in designing these circuits, as well as developing design techniques for them. The frontier research in this area can be traced back to Huffman's publications `The Synthesis of Sequential Switching Circuits' in 1954 followed by Unger's book, `Asynchronous Sequential Switching Circuits' in 1969 where a theoretical foundation for handling logic hazards was established. In the last few years a growing number of researchers have joined force in unveiling the mystery of designing correct asynchronous circuits, and better yet, have produced several alternatives in automatic synthesis and verification of such circuits. This collection of research papers represents a balanced view of current research efforts in the design, synthesis and verification of asynchronous systems.

Since the second half of the 1980s asynchronous circuits have been the subject of a great deal of research following a period of relative oblivion. The lack of interest in asynchronous techniques was motivated by the progressive shift towards synchronous design techniques that had much more structure and were much easier to verify and synthesize. System design requirements made it impossible to eliminate totally the use of asynchronous circuits. Given the objective difficulty encountered by designers, the asynchronous components of electronic systems such as interfaces became a serious bottleneck in the design process. The use of new models and some theoretical breakthroughs made it possible to develop asynchronous design techniques that were reliable and effective. This book describes a variety of mathematical models and of algorithms that form the backbone and the body of a new design methodology for asyn chronous design. The book is intended for asynchronous hardware designers, for computer-aided tool experts, and for digital designers interested in ex ploring the possibility of designing asynchronous circuits. It requires a solid mathematical background in discrete event systems and algorithms. While the book has not been written as a textbook, nevertheless it could be used as a reference book in an advanced course in logic synthesis or asynchronous design.

Principles of Asynchronous Circuit Design - A Systems Perspective addresses the need for an introductory text on asynchronous circuit design. Part I is an 8-chapter tutorial which addresses the most important issues for the beginner, including how to think about asynchronous systems. Part II is a 4-chapter introduction to Balsa, a freely-available synthesis system for asynchronous circuits which will enable the reader to get hands-on experience of designing high-level asynchronous systems. Part III offers a number of examples of state-of-the-art asynchronous systems to illustrate what can be built using asynchronous techniques. The examples range from a complete commercial smart card chip to complex microprocessors. The objective in writing this book has been to enable industrial designers with a background in conventional (clocked) design to be able to understand asynchronous design sufficiently to assess what it has to offer and whether it might be advantageous in their next design task.

With asynchronous circuit design becoming a powerful tool in thedevelopment of new digital systems, circuit designers are expectedto have asynchronous design skills and be able to leverage them toreduce power consumption and increase system speed. This book walksreaders through all of the different methodologies of asynchronouscircuit design, emphasizing practical techniques and real-worldapplications instead of theoretical simulation. The only guide ofits kind, it also features an ftp site complete with supportmaterials. Market: Electrical Engineers, Computer Scientists, DeviceDesigners, and Developers in industry. An Instructor Support FTP site is available from the Wileyeditorial department.

As the costs of power and timing become increasingly difficult to manage in traditional synchronous systems, designers are being forced to look at asynchronous alternatives. Based on reworked and expanded papers from the VII Banff Higher Order Workshop, this volume examines asynchronous methods which have been used in large circuit design, ranging from initial formal specification to more standard finite state machine based control models. Written by leading practitioners in the area, the papers cover many aspects of current practice including practical design, silicon compilation, and applications of formal specification. It also includes a state-of-the-art survey of asynchronous hardware design. The resulting volume will be invaluable to anyone interested in designing correct asynchronous circuits which exhibit high performance or low power operation.

Design frameworks have become an important infrastructure for building complex design systems. Electronic Design Automation Frameworks presents a state-of-the-art review of the latest research results covering this topic; results which are also of value for other design frameworks. The book contains the selected proceedings of the Fourth International Working Conference on Electronic Design Frameworks, organized by the International Federation for Information Processing and held in Gramado, Brazil, in November 1994.

This text is based on the class notes of a VLSI signal processing circuit course series (EEE598) the author developed for the EE department at Arizona State University. The materials are organized into nineteen special topics covering various state-of-the-arts symmetry based VLSI circuit design techniques for basic VLSI circuit elements, circuit modules and systems, where the symmetry principle and methods with inherently low PVT sensitivity are used to design VLSI circuits with superior scalability and performance for various VLSI SOC applications.