Synthesis Of Asynchronous Controllers For Heterogeneous Systems

There are two synchronization mechanisms used in digital systems: synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous or asynchronous refers to whether the system events occur in lock-step based on a clock or not. Today's system components typically employ the synchronous paradigm primarily because of the availability of the rich set of design tools and algorithms and, perhaps, because of the designers' perception of "ease of design" and the lack of alternatives. Even so, the interfaces among the system components do not strictly adhere to the synchronous paradigm because of the cost benefit of mixing modules operating at different clock rates and modules with asynchronous interfaces. This thesis addresses the problem of how to synthesize controllers operating in heterogeneous systems --- systems with components employing different synchronization mechanisms. We introduce a new design style called extended-burst-mode. The extended-burstmode design style covers a wide spectrum of sequential circ..