Asynchronous System-on-Chip Interconnect


Book Description

Asynchronous System-on-Chip Interconnect describes the use of an entirely asynchronous system-bus for the modular construction of integrated circuits. Industry is just awakening to the benefits of asynchronous design in avoiding the problems of clock-skew and multiple clock-domains, an din parallel with this is coming to grips with Intellectual Property (IP) based design flows which emphasise the need for a flexible interconnect strategy. In this book, John Bainbridge investigates the design of an asynchronous on-chip interconnect, looking at all the stages of the design from the choice of wiring layout, through asynchronous signalling protocols to the higher level problems involved in supporting split transactions. The MARBLE bus (the first asynchronous SoC bus) used in a commercial demonstrator chip containing a mixture of asynchronous and synchronous macrocells is used as a concrete example throughout the book.







Variation Tolerant On-Chip Interconnects


Book Description

This book presents design techniques, analysis and implementation of high performance and power efficient, variation tolerant on-chip interconnects. Given the design paradigm shift to multi-core, interconnect-centric designs and the increase in sources of variability and their impact in sub-100nm technologies, this book will be an invaluable reference for anyone concerned with the design of next generation, high-performance electronics systems.







Asynchronous On-Chip Networks and Fault-Tolerant Techniques


Book Description

Asynchronous On-Chip Networks and Fault-Tolerant Techniques is the first comprehensive study of fault-tolerance and fault-caused deadlock effects in asynchronous on-chip networks, aiming to overcome these drawbacks and ensure greater reliability of applications. As a promising alternative to the widely used synchronous on-chip networks for multicore processors, asynchronous on-chip networks can be vulnerable to faults even if they can deliver the same performance with much lower energy and area compared with their synchronous counterparts – faults can not only corrupt data transmission but also cause a unique type of deadlock. By adopting a new redundant code along with a dynamic fault detection and recovery scheme, the authors demonstrate that asynchronous on-chip networks can be efficiently hardened to tolerate both transient and permanent faults and overcome fault-caused deadlocks. This book will serve as an essential guide for researchers and students studying interconnection networks, fault-tolerant computing, asynchronous system design, circuit design and on-chip networking, as well as for professionals interested in designing fault-tolerant and high-throughput asynchronous circuits.




On-Chip Communication Architectures


Book Description

Over the past decade, system-on-chip (SoC) designs have evolved to address the ever increasing complexity of applications, fueled by the era of digital convergence. Improvements in process technology have effectively shrunk board-level components so they can be integrated on a single chip. New on-chip communication architectures have been designed to support all inter-component communication in a SoC design. These communication architecture fabrics have a critical impact on the power consumption, performance, cost and design cycle time of modern SoC designs. As application complexity strains the communication backbone of SoC designs, academic and industrial R&D efforts and dollars are increasingly focused on communication architecture design. On-Chip Communication Architecures is a comprehensive reference on concepts, research and trends in on-chip communication architecture design. It will provide readers with a comprehensive survey, not available elsewhere, of all current standards for on-chip communication architectures. A definitive guide to on-chip communication architectures, explaining key concepts, surveying research efforts and predicting future trends Detailed analysis of all popular standards for on-chip communication architectures Comprehensive survey of all research on communication architectures, covering a wide range of topics relevant to this area, spanning the past several years, and up to date with the most current research efforts Future trends that with have a significant impact on research and design of communication architectures over the next several years




Principles of Asynchronous Circuit Design


Book Description

Principles of Asynchronous Circuit Design - A Systems Perspective addresses the need for an introductory text on asynchronous circuit design. Part I is an 8-chapter tutorial which addresses the most important issues for the beginner, including how to think about asynchronous systems. Part II is a 4-chapter introduction to Balsa, a freely-available synthesis system for asynchronous circuits which will enable the reader to get hands-on experience of designing high-level asynchronous systems. Part III offers a number of examples of state-of-the-art asynchronous systems to illustrate what can be built using asynchronous techniques. The examples range from a complete commercial smart card chip to complex microprocessors. The objective in writing this book has been to enable industrial designers with a background in conventional (clocked) design to be able to understand asynchronous design sufficiently to assess what it has to offer and whether it might be advantageous in their next design task.







Formal Methods and Software Engineering


Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Formal Engineering methods, ICFEM 2002, held in Shanghai, China, in October 2002. The 43 revised full papers and 16 revised short papers presented together with 5 invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 108 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on component engineering and software architecture, method integration, specification techniques and languages, tools and environments, refinement, applications, validation and verification, UML, and semantics.




Low-Power Processors and Systems on Chips


Book Description

The power consumption of microprocessors is one of the most important challenges of high-performance chips and portable devices. In chapters drawn from Piguet's recently published Low-Power Electronics Design, this volume addresses the design of low-power microprocessors in deep submicron technologies. It provides a focused reference for specialists involved in systems-on-chips, from low-power microprocessors to DSP cores, reconfigurable processors, memories, ad-hoc networks, and embedded software. Low-Power Processors and Systems on Chips is organized into three broad sections for convenient access. The first section examines the design of digital signal processors for embedded applications and techniques for reducing dynamic and static power at the electrical and system levels. The second part describes several aspects of low-power systems on chips, including hardware and embedded software aspects, efficient data storage, networks-on-chips, and applications such as routing strategies in wireless RF sensing and actuating devices. The final section discusses embedded software issues, including details on compilers, retargetable compilers, and coverification tools. Providing detailed examinations contributed by leading experts, Low-Power Processors and Systems on Chips supplies authoritative information on how to maintain high performance while lowering power consumption in modern processors and SoCs. It is a must-read for anyone designing modern computers or embedded systems.