Asynchronous

Processors
The clock less approach
• Introduction.
• Synchronous Vs Asynchronous.
• History of asynchronous.
• Asynchronous approach.
• Muller C element.
• Properties.
• Challenges.
• Present trends.
 Introduction

• One overshadowed by another's success.

• Demand for high performance, time-critical
battery-powered devices.
• Revisiting the clock less concept.
 Synchronous vs. Asynchronous
• Central clock.
• Power efficiency.
• Electromagnetic compatibility.
• Reliability and robustness.
• Clock skew.
• Adaptability.
• Speed.
 Until so far
• ILLIAC series (1952-62)
VonNeumann
• Caltech async proc(1988)
world’s first.
• TITAC tokyo(1998)
• ARM-implementing
AMULET(2000)
• HT80C51 (2007)
• SEA-Forth multicore.
(2008).
 The Asynchronous approach
• Methods of speeding up.
• Handshaking.
Enables different
components of a circuit
to synchronize. (no
critical path required).
Additional overhead and
invalid signal
propogation.
 The Asynchronous approach
• Bundled-data protocols.
Two phase and Four
phase.
referred to as micro
pipelines.
 The Muller Pipeline
• Muller-C element • While true do
fundamental of Async. if x==y then
• Propagates only the z=x
valid data else
z=z
end if
done
The Muller Pipeline
 Properties
• Self-timed.
• Energy efficiency.
• Maximum speed operation.
• Electromagnetic compatibility.
• Reliability and robustness against
metastability.
• Plug and play.
 Challenges
• Handshaking mechanism.
• Computer-aided design.
• Custom chip design.
• Tutoring Sync engineers
 Present trend
• INTEL says “ …traditional synchronous design becomes increasingly inefficient. Much of
total delay is dedicated to clock skew, latch delay, margin in each cycle, and non-ideal division
to cycle boundaries. …Significant margins must be added to account for slow marginal cells
that are statistically probable in a 24MB cache. The delivery of low clock skew over such an
area is also difficult and costly. This single-ended asynchronous design eliminates the
drawbacks above…”

• AsAp hybrids using GALS technology.

• Seiko Epson flexible.
• Outer space applications,
Wireless sensors,Mobiles.
• CADRE DSP mobile app.
Summing up
THANK YOU.