The GAPLA: a globally asynchronous locally synchronous FPGA architecture

This paper proposes GAPLA: a globally asynchronous locally synchronous programmable logic array architecture. The whole FPGA area is divided into locally synchronous blocks wrapped with asynchronous I/O interfaces. Data communications between synchronous blocks are controlled by 2-phase handshaking signals. The size and shape of each locally synchronous block are programmable so that different modules in a design can be effectively implemented. Each block could run at higher speed because only the fast local interconnections are used. Experimental results show an up to 28% performance improvement compared to the conventional FPGAs with small area overhead (around 2%).