An Open-Source Design Flow for Asynchronous Circuits

Rajit Manohar

There have been a number of small-scale and large-scale technology demonstrations of asynchronous circuits, showing that they have benefits in performance and powerefficiency in a variety of application domains. Most recently, asynchronous circuits were used in the TrueNorth neuromorphic chip to achieve unprecedented energy-efficiency for neuromorphic systems. However, these circuits cannot be easily adopted, because commercially available design tools do not support asynchronous logic. As part of the DARPA ERI effort, we are addressing this challenge by developing a set of open-source design tools for asynchronous circuits.

 
  
Yale