Visualisation and resolution of encoding conflicts in asynchronous circuit design

Synthesis of asynchronous circuits from signal transition graphs (STGs) involves resolution of state encoding conflicts by means of refining the STG specification. The refinement process is generally done automatically using heuristics. It often produces suboptimal solutions or sometimes fails to solve the problem. Thus manual intervention by the designer may be required. A framework is presented for an interactive refinement process aimed to help the designer. It is based on the visualisation of conflict cores, i.e. sets of transitions causing encoding conflicts, which are represented at the level of finite and complete prefixes of STG unfoldings