Towards behavioral synthesis of asynchronous circuits - an implementation template targeting syntax directed compilation

This paper presents a method for behavioral synthesis of asynchronous circuits. Our approach aims at providing a synthesis flow which is very similar to what is found in existing synchronous design tools. We adapt the synchronous behavioral synthesis abstraction into the asynchronous handshake domain by introducing a computation model, which resembles the synchronous datapath and control architecture, but which is completely asynchronous. The datapath and control architecture is then expressed in the Balsa-language, and using syntax directed compilation a corresponding handshake circuit implementation is produced. The paper also reports area, speed and power figures for a couple of benchmark circuits, which have been synthesized to layout.