Pipeline optimization for asynchronous circuits: complexity analysis and an efficient optimal algorithm

  • Authors:
  • Sangyun Kim;P. A. Beerel

  • Affiliations:
  • Synopsys Inc., Hillsboro, OR, USA;-

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems
  • Year:
  • 2006
  • Elastic circuits

    IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems

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Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of identifying the minimum pipelining needed in an asynchronous circuit (e.g., number/size of pipeline stages/latches required) to satisfy a given performance constraint, thereby implicitly minimizing area and power for a given performance. The paper first shows that the basic pipeline optimization problem for asynchronous circuits is NP-complete. Then, it presents an efficient branch and bound algorithm that finds the optimal pipeline configuration. The experimental results on a few scalable system models demonstrate that this algorithm is computationally feasible for moderately sized models.