’ Introduction : Practical Asynchronous Design

IT OWES US GREAT PLEASURE to present this special issue on asynchronous circuits and systems. The recent surge of interest in asynchronous circuits came about after an increase in VL.9 communication applications and the current push toward achieving higher performance at lower power and design cost. Most of the recent literature on this topic, however, comes from academia and tends to be quite theoretical for practicing engineers. We wanted to concentrate on the practical aspect of various asynchronous circuits and systems. Most industries dealing with circuits are designing asynchronous circuits, but such design is almost an art, with a significant portion of the knowledge gathered through learning on the job. We deliberately searched for articles from practicing designers and engineers to get the real picture of the state of the art in asynchronous circuit design and test. We wanted to achieve the following through the publication of this special issue: