High Level Synthesis of Asynchronous Circuits from Data Flow Graphs

This paper presents a toolbox for the automatic generation of asynchronous circuits starting from a data flow graph description. The toolbox consists of a scheduling and code generation tool. We use traditional scheduling algorithms as for synchronous circuits, but have replaced the implied synchronous controller for an asynchronous distributed control network. The control circuit allows for true asynchronous operation of all digital resources and as a result of its scalable distributed topology allows unlimited resource sharing. The distributed controllers can be created by connecting a small number of pre-designed sub-controllers which are presented in this paper. Prototype IP-blocks of these sub-controller circuits have been designed in a 90nm ASIC design process. Our toolbox is a capable to generate large complex asynchronous solutions, with upto 20 percent power saving, and as least as good latency performance as of synchronous solutions.