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Advances in Clockless and Mixed-Timing Digital Systems

Advances in Clockless and Mixed-Timing Digital Systems. Prof. Steven M. Nowick Email: nowick@cs.columbia.edu Department of Computer Science Columbia University. OUTLINE. I. Asynchronous & Mixed-Timing Design: Overview & Recent Developments

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Advances in Clockless and Mixed-Timing Digital Systems

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  1. Advances in Clockless and Mixed-Timing Digital Systems Prof. Steven M. Nowick Email: nowick@cs.columbia.edu Department of Computer ScienceColumbia University

  2. OUTLINE I. Asynchronous & Mixed-Timing Design:Overview & Recent Developments II. Low-Latency Interface Circuits for Mixed-Timing Domains

  3. Trends and Challenges Trends in Chip Design: next decade • “Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) Roadmap” (97-8) Unprecedented Challenges: • complexity and scale (= size of systems) • clock speeds • power management • “time-to-market” Design becoming unmanageable using a centralized (synchronous) approach….

  4. Trends and Challenges (cont.) 1. Clock Rate: • 1980: several MegaHertz • 2001: ~750 MegaHertz - 1+ GigaHertz • 2004:several GigaHertz Design Challenge: • “clock skew”: clock must be near-simultaneous across entire chip

  5. Trends and Challenges (cont.) 2. Chip Size and Density: Total #Transistors per Chip: 60-80% increase/year • ~1970: 4 thousand(Intel 4004) • today: 10-20+ million • 2004 and beyond:100 million-1 billion Design Challenges: • system complexity, design time, clock distribution • soon, clock will not reach across chip in 1 cycle!

  6. Trends and Challenges (cont.) 3. Power Consumption • Low power: ever-increasing demand • consumer electronics: battery-powered • high-end processors: avoid expensive fans, packaging Design Challenge: • clock inherently consumes power continuously • “power-down” techniques: only partly effective

  7. Trends and Challenges (cont.) 4. Design Re-Use, Scalability Increasing pressure for faster “time-to-market”. Need: • reusable components: “plug-and-play” design • scalable design: easy system upgrades Design Challenge: mismatch w/ central fixed-rate clock

  8. Trends and Challenges (cont.) 5. Future Trends: “Mixed Timing” Domains Chips themselves becoming distributed systems…. • contain many sub-regions, operating at different speeds: Design Challenge:breakdown of single central clock control

  9. Introduction • Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Systems? • Synchronous Systems: use a global clock • entire system operates at fixed-rate • uses “centralized control” clock

  10. Introduction (cont.) • Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Systems? (cont.) • Asynchronous Systems:no global clock • components can operate atvarying rates • communicate locally via “handshaking” • uses “distributed control” “handshaking interfaces”

  11. Introduction (cont.) Asynchronous Circuits: • long history (since early 1950’s), but... • early approaches often impractical: slow, complex Synchronous Circuits: • used almost everywhere: highly successful • benefits: simplicity, support by existing design tools But recently: renewed interest in asynchronous circuits

  12. Asynchronous Design Several Potential Advantages: • Lower Power • no clock ==> components use power only “on demand” • Robustness, Scalability • no global timing==>“mix-and-match” varied components • Higher Performance • systems not limited to “worst-case” clock rate

  13. Asynchronous Design: Challenges • Critical Design Issues: • components must communicate cleanly = “hazard-free” • highly-concurrent designs: much harder to understand! • Lack of Existing Design Tools: • most commercial “CAD” tools targeted to synchronous

  14. Asynchronous Design: Recent Commercial Interest 1. Philips Semiconductors [86-present] • async chips now in commercial pagers, cell phones • 3-4x lower power than synchronous • much lower electromagnetic interference (EMI) 2. Motorola/Theseus Logic [99-] • Joint venture: develop async embedded processor 3. Intel [96-98] • experimental high-speed design: instruction-length decoder • 3-4x faster than synchronous

  15. Asynchronous Design: Recent Commercial Interest 4. Sun Labs [~95-present] • experimental high-speed pipelines, routing fabric, systems 5. IBM Research [~98-present] • experimental high-speed pipelines, etc. 6. Several recent async startups: • Theseus Logic(Florida) • ADD(Pasadena) • Self-Timed Solutions(UK)

  16. My Research: Highlights 3 Main Asynchronous Areas: 1. CAD Tools: optimization algorithms + software packages 2. High-Speed Asynchronous Pipelines 3. Interface Circuits: for mixed-timing domains

  17. My Research: Funding NSF: 2 Large-Scale “ITR” Awards ($2.5 Million) [2000] 1. “CAD Tools” to Design/Optimize Asynchronous Systems(joint with USC) 2. 3rd-Generation Wireless Systems (async, very low power)(joint with Columbia EE - Ken Shepard) Other Funding: NSF, Sun, NYS CAT, Sloan Fdtn.

  18. 1. Developing Asynchronous CAD Tools Focus: 2 types of CAD tools (a) for individual controllers (i.e., finite-state machines) (b) for entire digital systems (a) The “MINIMALIST” Package[ICCAD-91/95/97/99, DAC-96] • R. Fuhrer, M. Theobald • Downloaded to 60+ sites/18+ countries (b) High-Level Synthesis Package[DAC-01, DATE-02] • M. Theobald, T. Chelcea Include: many sophisticated optimization algorithms Goal: provide many options for design-space exploration

  19. 0 Inputs: req-send treq rd-iq adbld-out ack-pkt Outputs: tack peack adbld 1 2 3 8 4 9 10 5 6 7 1(a). Synthesizing A ControllerUsing the “MINIMALIST” CAD Tool req-send-/ -- req-send+ treq+ rd-iq+/ adbld+ adbld-out+/ peack+ adbld-out- treq- ack-pkt+/ peack+ rd-iq-/ peack- adbld- tack+ ack-pkt+/ peack- tack- adbld-out- treq- rd-id+/ adbld+ adbld-out+/ peack+ treq-/ tack- treq+/ tack+ adbld-out- treq+ rd-iq+/ adbld+ rd-iq-/ peack- adbld- tack- From HP Labs“Mayfly” Project ack-pkt- treq-/ peack- tack- adbld-out- treq+ ack-pkt+/ peack+ tack+

  20. EXAMPLE (cont.): Examples:

  21. 2. High-Speed Digital Design Basic Digital Building Blocks = datapath components • adders, multipliers, dividers, … • central to almost all digital systems Asynchronous Design: several potential advantages • high speed (not limited by commercial clock rates) • adaptible interfacing (easy reuse in different environments) Goal: • new architectures + designs for very fast async datapath components Use Pipelining: to improve performance

  22. 2. High-Speed Digital Design PIPELINED COMPUTATION:like an assembly line global clock SYNCHRONOUS no global clock ASYNCHRONOUS

  23. 2. High-Speed Digital Design AN ASYNCHRONOUS PIPELINE:Williams/Horowitz (Stanford 86-91) PC Data in Data out Function Block Completion Detector

  24. 2. High-Speed Digital Design Our Goal: extremely high-speed digital components • much faster than commercial processors Contribution: 3 new async pipeline styles[Singh/Nowick] dynamic logic: 1. Lookahead Pipelines[Async-00] 2. High-Capacity Pipelines[ISSCC-02, Async-02, WVLSI-00] static logic: 3. MOUSETRAP Pipelines[ICCD-01]

  25. 2. High-Speed Digital Design Contributions (cont.): • introduce novel highly-concurrent protocols • basic operating speed: ~3.5+ GigaHertz[0.25 micron] • gracefully handle variable input/output rates Technology Transfer: IBM T.J. Watson [2000-2001] • in fabricated experimental FIR filter chip (for disk drives)

  26. 3. Robust Interface Circuitsfor “Mixed-Timing” Domains Critical challenge: interface sync/async, sync/sync systems -- operating at different clock rates --robustly, at high-speed! [DAC-01] Interface Circuits = “glue circuits” ASYNCSYSTEM SYNCSYSTEM: CLOCK 1 SYNCSYSTEM: CLOCK 2

  27. 4. Low-Power Applications Now investigating several promising async applications: • 3rd-Generation Wireless Systems(with K. Shepard, EE) • very low power, reconfigurable to different standards • Embedded Processors • used in cell phones, automobiles, digital cameras, ...

  28. 5. Tech Transfer: IBM Research Invited to transfer pipeline technology: • PhD Student (Montek Singh): 5-month internship (5-12/00) • IBM Application:filter design • async design -- sandwiched between sync interfaces • Fabricated Chip:evaluated in Feb.-March 2001 • Benefits: “adaptive-pipelining”[ISSCC-02] Potential for future use in IBM products….

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