Four-phase micropipeline latch control circuits

Abstract

Standard micropipelines use simple two-phase control circuits. The latches employed on AMULET1 are level sensitive, so two- to four-phase converters are required in each latch controller. To avoid this overhead an investigation has been carried out into four-phase micropipeline control circuits; this has thrown up several design issues relating to cost, performance and safety, and forms a useful illustration of asynchronous design techniques.