Design Methodology for Mixed Analog/Asynchronous VLSI Implementations of Communications Systems

PI 正在探索混合模拟和异步电路的新设计方法。随着晶体管特征尺寸向 0.1 微米发展，时钟频率超过 1 GHz，维持全球同步范式变得越来越困难。该项目的目标是开发和应用混合模拟/异步电路的设计方法。由于通信领域具有挑战性的性能和功耗需求，该项目使用了通信领域的驱动示例。通信系统的异步特性与最近的概率传播算法（PPA）（turbo码等系统中的关键操作）的模拟实现相结合，使得该领域成为潜在收益的主要目标。该项目使用概率传播扩展了迭代解码领域的工作，以开发可以利用混合模拟/异步系统特性的算法和架构。该项目还应用定时异步电路的 CAD 工具来设计这些系统。最后，该项目正在开发一种新的电路设计方法，用于实现混合模拟/异步系统。

The PIs are exploring a new design methodology for mixed analog and asynchronous circuits. As transistor feature sizes move towards 0.1 micron and clock frequencies exceed one GHz, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain a globally synchronous paradigm. The goal of this project is to develop and apply a design methodology for mixed analog/asynchronous circuits. This project uses driving examples from the field of communications due to their challenging performance and power demands. The asynchronous nature of communications systems coupled with recent analog implementations of probability propagation algorithms (PPA), a key operation in such systems as turbo codes, makes this field a prime target for potential gains. This project extends the work in the area of iterative decoding using probability propagation to develop algorithms and architectures which can take advantage of the properties of a mixed analog/asynchronous system. This project also applies CAD tools for timed asynchronous circuits to design these systems. Finally, this project is developing a new circuit design methodology for the implementation of mixed analog/asynchronous systems.