An Extended Metastability Simulation Method for Synchronizer Characterization
نویسندگان
چکیده
Synchronizers play a key role in multi-clock domain systems on chip. Designing reliable synchronizers requires estimating and evaluating synchronizer parameters (resolution time constant) and (metastability window). Typically, evaluation of these parameters has been done by empirical rules of thumb or simple circuit simulations to ensure that the synchronizer MTBF is sufficiently long. This paper shows that those rules of thumb and some common simulation method are unable to predict correct synchronizer parameters in deep sub-micron technologies. We propose an extended simulation method to estimate synchronizer characteristics more reliably and compare the results obtained with other state-of-the-art simulation methods and with measurements of a 65nm LP CMOS test-chip.
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