Title :
The design and evaluation of an asynchronous microprocessor
Author :
Furber, S.B. ; Day, P. ; Garside, J.D. ; Paver, N.C. ; Temple, S. ; Woods, J.V.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Comput. Sci., Manchester Univ., UK
Abstract :
AMULET1 is a fully asynchronous implementation of the ARM microprocessor which was designed at Manchester University between 1991 and 1993. First silicon arrived in April 1994 and was found to be functional, demonstrating that asynchronous design of complex circuits is feasible with present day CAD tools. This paper presents the motivation for the work, some of the design choices which were made, the problems which were encountered during the development of the design and the characteristics of the device itself. The future potential for asynchronous circuits is also discussed
Keywords :
CMOS integrated circuits; logic CAD; microprocessor chips; sequential circuits; AMULET1; ARM microprocessor; CAD; asynchronous circuits; asynchronous microprocessor; Circuits; Clocks; Computer science; Design automation; Energy management; Microprocessors; Process design; Reduced instruction set computing; Silicon; Timing;
Conference_Titel :
Computer Design: VLSI in Computers and Processors, 1994. ICCD '94. Proceedings., IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Cambridge, MA
Print_ISBN :
0-8186-6565-3
DOI :
10.1109/ICCD.1994.331891
