We believe that asynchronous circuits are a wonderful object, that aban­ dons some of the almost militaristic law and order that governs synchronous circuits, to improve in terms of simplicity, energy efficiency and performance.

1. Introduction.- 1.1 A Little History.- 1.2 Advantages of Asynchronous Logic.- 1.3 Asynchronous Control Circuits.- 2. Design Flow.- 2.1 Specification of Asynchronous Controllers.- 2.2 Transition Systems and State Graphs.- 2.3 Deriving Logic Equations.- 2.4 State Encoding.- 2.5 Logic Decomposition and Technology Mapping.- 2.6 Synthesis with Relative Timing.- 2.7 Summary.- 3. Background.- 3.1 Petri Nets.- 3.2 Structural Theory of Petri Nets.- 3.3 Calculating the Reachability Graph of a Petri Net.- 3.4 Transition Systems.- 3.5 Deriving Petri Nets from Transition Systems.- 3.6 Algorithm for Petri Net Synthesis.- 3.7 Event Insertion in Transition Systems.- 4. Logic Synthesis.- 4.1 Signal Transition Graphs and State Graphs.- 4.2 Implement ability as a Logic Circuit.- 4.3 Boolean Functions.- 4.4 Gate Netlists.- 4.5 Deriving a Gate Net list.- 4.6 What is Speed-Independence?.- 4.7 Summary.- 5. State Encoding.- 5.1 Methods for Complete State Coding.- 5.2 Constrained Signal Transition Event Insertion.- 5.3 Selecting SIP-Sets.- 5.4 Transformation of State Graphs.- 5.5 Completeness of the Method.- 5.6 An Heuristic Strategy to Solve CSC.- 5.7 Cost Function.- 5.8 Related Work.- 5.9 Summary.- 6. Logic Decomposition.- 6.1 Overview.- 6.2 Architecture-Based Decomposition.- 6.3 Logic Decomposition Using Algebraic Factorization.- 6.4 Logic Decomposition Using Boolean Relations.- 6.5 Experimental Results.- 6.6 Summary.- 7. Synthesis with Relative Timing.- 7.1 Motivation.- 7.2 Lazy Transition Systems and Lazy State Graphs.- 7.3 Overview and Example.- 7.4 Timing Assumptions.- 7.5 Synthesis with Relative Timing.- 7.6 Automatic Generation of Timing Assumptions.- 7.7 Back-Annotation of Timing Constraints.- 7.8 Experimental Results.- 7.9 Summary.- 8. Design Examples.- 8.1 Handshake Communication.- 8.2 VME Bus Controller.- 8.3 Controller for Self-timed A/D Converter.- 8.4 “Lazy” Token Ring Adapter.- 8.5 Other Examples.- 9. Other Work.- 9.1 Hardware Description Languages.- 9.2 Structural and Unfolding-based Synthesis.- 9.3 Direct Mapping of STGs into Asynchronous Circuits.- 9.4 Datapath Design and Interfaces.- 9.5 Test Pattern Generation and Design for Testability.- 9.6 Verification.- 9.7 Asynchronous Silicon.- 10. Conclusions.- References.

This book is devoted to logic synthesis and design techniques for asynchronous circuits. It uses the mathematical theory of Petri Nets and asynchronous automata to develop practical algorithms implemented in a public domain CAD tool. Asynchronous circuits have so far been designed mostly by hand, and are thus much less common than their synchronous counterparts, which have enjoyed a high level of design automation since the mid-1970s. Asynchronous circuits, on the other hand, can be very useful to tackle clock distribution, modularity, power dissipation and electro-magnetic interference in digital integrated circuits. This book provides the foundation needed for CAD-assisted design of such circuits, and can also be used as the basis for a graduate course on logic design.