A Framework for Modeling the Distributed Deployment of Synchronous Designs

Synchronous specifications are appealing in the design of large scale hardware and software systems because of their properties that facilitate verification and synthesis. When the target architecture is a distributed system, implementing a synchronous specification as a synchronous design may be inefficient in terms of both size (memory for software implementations or area for hardware implementations) and performance. A more elaborate implementation style where the basic synchronous paradigm is adapted to distributed architectures by introducing elements of asynchrony is, hence, highly desirable. Building on the tagged-signal model, we present a modeling for the distributed deployment of synchronous design. We offer a comparative exposition of various design approaches (synchronous, asynchronous, GALS, latency-insensitive, and synchronous programming) and we provide some insight on the role of signal absence in modeling synchronization in distributed concurrent systems. Finally, we compare two distinct methodologies, desynchronization and latencyinsensitive design, and we elaborate on possible options to combine their results.