SYNCHRONOUS CIRCUIT SYNTHESIS USING AN ASYNCHRONOUS SPECIFICATION

摘要

A method for specifying and synthesizing a synchronous digitalcircuit by first accepting a specification of an asynchronous system inwhich stored values are updated according to a set of state transition rules.Forinstance, the state transition rules are specified as a Term Rewriting System(TRS) in which each rule specifies a number of allowable state transitions,andincludes a logical precondition on the stored values and a functionalspecificationof the stored values after a state transition in terms of the stored valuesprior to the state transition. The specification of the asynchronous circuitisconverted into a specification of a synchronous circuit in which a number ofstate transitions can occur during each clock period. The method includesidentifying sets of state transitions, for example by identifying sets of TRSrules, that can occur during a single clocking period and forming thespecificationof the synchronous circuit to allow any of the state transitions in asingle set to occur during any particular clocking period.