Advances in asynchronous logic: From principles to GALS & NoC, recent industry applications, and commercial CAD tools

Abstract

The growing variability and complexity of advanced CMOS technologies makes the physical design of clocked logic in large Systems-on-Chip more and more challenging. Asynchronous logic has been studied for many years and become an attractive solution for a broad range of applications, from massively parallel multi-media systems to systems with ultra-low power & low-noise constraints, like cryptography, energy autonomous systems, and sensor-network nodes. The objective of this embedded tutorial is to give a comprehensive and recent overview of asynchronous logic. The tutorial will cover the basic principles and advantages of asynchronous logic, some insights on new research challenges, and will present the GALS scheme as an intermediate design style with recent results in asynchronous Network-on-Chip for future Many Core architectures. Regarding industrial acceptance, recent asynchronous logic applications within the microelectronics industry will be presented, with a main focus on the commercial CAD tools available today.