An optimization for the design of a simple asynchronous processor

Abstract:- The asynchronous circuit style is based on micropipelines, a style used to develop asynchronous microprocessors at Manchester University. This paper has presented some engineering work on developing a micropipeline Stump processor. The work presented in this paper demonstrates that VHDL can be used to describe the behaviour of micropipelined systems. It also shows a comparison of 2-phase and 4-phase implementations in transistor count, speed, and energy. Though the nature of the work is mainly engineering, there are some significant new insights gained in the course of the work. The 2-phase circuits have good performance in speed. This is due to the rising and falling transitions of the 4-phase circuits following the same routes. Asymmetric delays with fast reset circuit can be applied to improve the performance. The fastest speed is 1.55 MIPS for the two-phase synthesized processor and the lowest power consumption is 362.33 fj for the synthesized four-phase long hold processor