Practical Asynchronous Interconnect Network Design

The implementation of interconnect is becoming a significant challenge in modern integrated circuit (IC) design. Both synchronous and asynchronous strategies have been suggested to manage this problem. Creating a low skew clock tree for synchronous inter-block pipeline stages is a significant challenge. Asynchronous interconnect does not require a global clock, and therefore, it has a potential advantage in terms of design effort. This paper presents an asynchronous interconnect design that can be implemented using a standard application-specific IC flow. This design is considered across a range of IC interconnect scenarios. The results demonstrate that there is a region of the design space where the implementation provides an advantage over a synchronous interconnect by removing the need for clocked inter-block pipeline stages, while maintaining high throughput. Further results demonstrate a computer-aided design tool enhancement that would significantly increase this space. A detailed comparison of power, area, and latency of the two strategies is also provided for a range of IC scenarios.