Optimised Synthesis of Asynchronous Elastic Dataflows by Leveraging Clocked EDA

Abstract—A ‘natural ’ way of describing an algorithm is as a data flow. When synthesizing hardware a lot of design effort can be expended on details of mapping this into clock cycles. However there are several good reasons – not least the maturity of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools – for implementing circuits synchronously. This paper describes: a) an approach to transform an asynchronous dataflow network into a synchronous elastic implementation whilst retaining the characteristic, relatively free, flow of data. b) work to translate a synchronous elastic dataflow into a synchronous circuit whose deterministic properties pave the road for further behavioural analysis of the system. The results exhibit considerable benefit in terms of area over an asynchronous dataflow realisation. I