Asynchronous design using commercial HDL synthesis tools

TLDR

Asynchronous design promises reusable IP blocks with simple assembly, yet current tools lag behind synchronous ones, demanding significant re‑education and better designer support. The paper proposes leveraging conventional design flow and commercial CAD tools to implement Null Convention Logic asynchronous circuits, weighing simplicity against implementation quality. The suggested flow adheres to conventional design practices while fully employing commercial CAD tools for NCL circuit synthesis.

Abstract

New design technologies rely on truly reusable IP blocks with simple means of assembly. Asynchronous methodologies could be a promising option to implement these requirements. Promotion of asynchronous design strongly depends upon the "level of service" delivered to the designer. Current asynchronous design tools require a significant re-education of designers and their capabilities are far behind synchronous commercial tools. One solution to these problems, which we advance in this paper, is to stick to a conventional design flow as closely as possible and to use commercial design tools as much as possible. The paper considers a particular subclass of asynchronous circuits (Null Convention Logic or NCL) and suggests a design flow which is completely based on commercial CAD tools. It argues about the trade-off between the simplicity of design flow and the quality of obtained implementations.