GOALI: Extreme Environment Microcontrollers

AbstractGOALI:极端环境微控制器项目目标：极端环境电子产品的市场需求包括许多商业应用，如电力行业的集成栅极驱动器，汽车行业的发动机内传感和控制，石油/天然气勘探中的井况监测和钻井辅助，医疗成像仪器中的低温高场磁体制造，以及许多其他应用，如超导计算和储能系统，激光行业，空间探索、野外分布式传感器、磁悬浮运输系统和红外系统。摘要：极端环境对电子产品，特别是数字集成电路提出了重大挑战：对于极端温度环境，由于电路速度是温度的强烈函数，在宽温度范围内的定时控制变得非常困难；在不稳定的电源环境下，不稳定或低功率的供电也会引起电路速度的较大变化。在流行的时钟同步数字集成电路中，同步时钟用于控制和协调电路操作，以及一组定时约束，如设置和保持时间。在极端环境下，由于电路速度的变化，这些关键的时序限制很容易被打破，从而引起系统故障。因此，需要创新来解决这些问题并开发极端环境电子产品，以便在高效可靠的传感，通信，控制和数据处理子系统中为上述商业行业做出贡献。该GOALI项目是阿肯色大学和Radiance Technologies之间的合作项目，旨在开发准延迟不敏感的异步微控制器，该微控制器能够在极端环境下可靠运行，无需额外的保护或控制/调整。准延迟不敏感的异步逻辑，如NULL约定逻辑（NCL）使用本地握手协议代替全局时钟来控制电路行为。个别门的延迟对电路输出的正确性没有影响。该特性保证了在极端环境下稳健的电路运行，使NCL成为为此类应用设计微控制器的有希望的候选者。然而，为了提高性能、减少开销和增强鲁棒性，需要在微控制器架构和NCL电路设计上进行创新：在架构层面，现有的总线架构不适合NCL，需要被替换；分布式存储机制是电路运行中最薄弱的环节，需要进行重组；外部中断处理需要重新设计为完全异步的。在电路层面，晶体管需要调整尺寸以提高极端环境下的可靠性；NCL逻辑门设计需要针对低电源电压进行修改；需要研究NCL逻辑转换以提高性能。在Radiance Technologies的行业标准指导、经验和帮助下，将设计、制造和测试包含上述创新的原型NCL微控制器。将对结果进行分析，以便进一步改进、传播和技术转让，以实现潜在的商业化。

AbstractGOALI: Extreme Environment MicrocontrollersProject Objectives:The market needs of extreme environment electronics encompass many commercial applications such as integrated gate drivers in power industry, in-engine sensing and control in automobile industry, well condition monitoring and drilling assistance in oil/gas exploration, cryogenic high-field magnet creation in medical imaging instrumentation, and many others like superconducting computing and energy storage systems, laser industry, space exploration, in-field distributed sensors, magnetic levitation transport systems, and infrared systems.Non-Technical Abstract:The extreme environments pose significant challenges to electronics, especially for digital integrated circuits: for extreme temperature environments, since the circuit speed is a strong function of temperature, timing control becomes very difficult across wide temperature ranges; for unstable energy source environment, the unstable or low power supply causes large variations in circuit speed as well. In the prevailing clocked synchronous digital integrated circuits, synchronized clocks are used to control and coordinate the circuit operation, along with a set of timing constraints such as setup and hold times. These critical timing constraints can be easily broken in extreme environments due to the circuit speed changes, thereby inducing system malfunction. Therefore, innovations are needed to solve these problems and develop extreme environment electronics in order to make contributions to the commercial industry discussed above in efficient and reliable sensing, communication, control, and data processing subsystems.Technical AbstractThis GOALI project is a collaborative effort between the University of Arkansas and Radiance Technologies to develop quasi-delay insensitive asynchronous microcontrollers capable of operating reliably under extreme environments without extra protection or control/adjustment. Quasi-delay insensitive asynchronous logic like the NULL Convention Logic (NCL) uses local handshaking protocols in lieu of global clocks to control the circuit behavior. Individual gate delay has no impact on the correctness of the circuit's outputs. This feature guarantees robust circuit operation under extreme environments, making NCL a promising candidate for designing microcontrollers for such applications. However, innovations in microcontroller architecture and NCL circuit design are needed to improve performance, reduce overhead, and enhance the robustness: at the architecture-level, the prevailing bus architecture is unsuitable for NCL and needs to be replaced; the distributed storage mechanism is the weakest link of circuit operation and needs to be reorganized; and the external interrupt handling needs to redesigned as fully asynchronous. At the circuit-level, transistors need to be resized to improve the reliability under extreme environments; NCL logic gate design needs to be modified for low supply voltages; and NCL logic transformation needs to be investigated to improve the performance. With the industry-standard guidance, experience, and assistance from Radiance Technologies, a prototype NCL microcontroller incorporating the above innovations will be designed, fabricated, and tested. The results will be analyzed for further improvements, dissemination, and technology transfer for potential commercialization.