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Timing Path-Driven Cycle Cutting for Sequential Controllers

Published: 22 June 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Power and performance optimization of integrated circuits is performed by timing-driven algorithms that operate on directed acyclic graphs. Sequential circuits and circuits with topological feedback contain cycles. Cyclic circuits must be represented as directed acyclic graphs to be optimized and evaluated using static timing analysis. Algorithms in commercial electronic design automation tools generate the required acyclic graphs by cutting cycles without considering timing paths. This work reports on a method for generating directed acyclic circuit graphs that do not cut the specified timing paths. The algorithm is applied to over 125 benchmark designs and asynchronous handshake controllers. The runtime is less than 1 second, even for even the largest published controllers. Circuit timing graphs generated using this method retain the necessary timing paths, which enables circuit validation and optimization employing the commercial tools. Additional benefits show these designs are on an average a third in size, operate 33.3% faster, and consume one-fourth the energy.

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Cited By

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  • (2023)Cyclic Timing Path Evaluation Using Commercial Static Timing Analysis Algorithms2023 28th IEEE International Symposium on Asynchronous Circuits and Systems (ASYNC)10.1109/ASYNC58294.2023.10239605(60-70)Online publication date: 16-Jul-2023

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems
ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems  Volume 21, Issue 4
September 2016
423 pages
ISSN:1084-4309
EISSN:1557-7309
DOI:10.1145/2939671
  • Editor:
  • Naehyuck Chang
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 22 June 2016
Accepted: 01 February 2016
Revised: 01 January 2016
Received: 01 September 2015
Published in TODAES Volume 21, Issue 4

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  1. Asynchronous
  2. design automation

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  • National Science Foundation
  • Semiconductor Research Corporation

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  • (2023)Cyclic Timing Path Evaluation Using Commercial Static Timing Analysis Algorithms2023 28th IEEE International Symposium on Asynchronous Circuits and Systems (ASYNC)10.1109/ASYNC58294.2023.10239605(60-70)Online publication date: 16-Jul-2023

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