Title
On Dual-Rail Control Logic for Enhanced Circuit Robustness
Abstract
Ultra low-power design and energy harvesting applications require digital systems to operate under extremely low voltages approaching the point of balance between dynamic and static power consumption which is attained in the sub-threshold operation mode. Delay variations are extremely large in this mode, which calls for the use of asynchronous circuits that are speed-independent or quasi-delay-insensitive. However, even these classes of asynchronous logic become vulnerable because certain timing assumptions commonly accepted under normal operating conditions are no longer valid. In particular, the delay of inverters, often used as the so-called input 'bubbles', can no longer be neglected and they have to be either removed or properly acknowledged to ensure speed-independence. This paper presents an automated approach to synthesis of robust controllers for sub-threshold digital systems based on dual-rail implementation of control logic which eliminates inverters completely. This and other important properties are analysed and compared to the standard single-rail solutions. Dual-rail controllers are shown not to have significant overheads in terms of area and power consumption and are even faster in some cases due to the elimination of inverters from critical paths. The presented automated synthesis techniques are very efficient and can be applied to very large controllers as demonstrated in benchmarks.
Year
DOI
Venue
2012
10.1109/ACSD.2012.17
Application of Concurrency to System Design
Keywords
Field
DocType
asynchronous circuits,control system synthesis,robust control,timing circuits,asynchronous circuits,asynchronous logic,delay variations,dual-rail control logic,dynamic power consumption,energy harvesting,enhanced circuit robustness,inverter elimination,point-of-balance,robust controller synthesis,static power consumption,subthreshold digital systems,subthreshold operation mode,timing assumptions,ultra low-power design,dual-rail encoding,logic synthesis,robustness,speed independent circuits
Logic synthesis,Asynchronous communication,Computer science,Real-time computing,Robustness (computer science),Control logic,Concurrent computing,Robust control,Electronic circuit,Asynchronous circuit
Conference
ISSN
ISBN
Citations 
1550-4808
978-1-4673-1687-3
1
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.35
18
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Andrey Mokhov113626.57
Victor Khomenko228620.67
Danil Sokolov322727.50
Alex Yakovlev451664.23