A delay-insensitive circuit is a type of
asynchronous circuit
Asynchronous circuit (clockless or self-timed circuit) is a sequential digital logic circuit that does not use a global clock circuit or signal generator to synchronize its components. Instead, the components are driven by a handshaking circui ...
which performs a
digital logic
A logic gate is an idealized or physical device implementing a Boolean function, a logical operation performed on one or more binary inputs that produces a single binary output. Depending on the context, the term may refer to an ideal logic ga ...
operation often within a computing processor chip. Instead of using
clock signal
In electronics and especially synchronous digital circuits, a clock signal (historically also known as ''logic beat'') oscillates between a high and a low state and is used like a metronome to coordinate actions of digital circuits.
A clock s ...
s or other global
control signals, the sequencing of computation in delay-insensitive circuit is determined by the data flow.
Data flows from one circuit element to another using "handshakes", or sequences of voltage transitions to indicate readiness to receive data, or readiness to offer data. Typically, inputs of a circuit module will indicate their readiness to receive, which will be "acknowledged" by the connected output by sending data (encoded in such a way that the receiver can detect the validity directly), and once that data has been safely received, the receiver will explicitly acknowledge it, allowing the sender to remove the data, thus completing the handshake, and allowing another datum to be transmitted.
In a delay-insensitive circuit, there is therefore no need to provide a clock signal to determine a starting time for a computation. Instead, the arrival of data to the input of a sub-circuit triggers the computation to start. Consequently, the next computation can be initiated immediately when the result of the first computation is completed.
The main advantage of such circuits is their ability to optimize processing of activities that can take
arbitrary
Arbitrariness is the quality of being "determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle". It is also used to refer to a choice made without any specific criterion or restraint.
Arbitrary decisions are not necess ...
periods of time depending on the data or requested function. An example of a process with a variable time for completion would be mathematical
division
Division or divider may refer to:
Mathematics
*Division (mathematics), the inverse of multiplication
*Division algorithm, a method for computing the result of mathematical division
Military
* Division (military), a formation typically consisting ...
or recovery of data where such data might be in a
cache
Cache, caching, or caché may refer to:
Places United States
* Cache, Idaho, an unincorporated community
* Cache, Illinois, an unincorporated community
* Cache, Oklahoma, a city in Comanche County
* Cache, Utah, Cache County, Utah
* Cache Coun ...
.
The Delay-Insensitive (DI) class is the most robust of all
asynchronous circuit
Asynchronous circuit (clockless or self-timed circuit) is a sequential digital logic circuit that does not use a global clock circuit or signal generator to synchronize its components. Instead, the components are driven by a handshaking circui ...
delay models. It makes no assumptions on the delay of wires or gates. In this model all transitions on gates or wires must be acknowledged before transitioning again. This condition stops unseen transitions from occurring. In DI circuits any transition on an input to a gate must be seen on the output of the gate before a subsequent transition on that input is allowed to happen. This forces some input states or sequences to become illegal. For example OR gates must never go into the state where both inputs are one, as the entry and exit from this state will not be seen on the output of the gate. Although this model is very robust, no practical circuits are possible due to the lack of expressible conditionals in DI circuits.
Instead the
Quasi-Delay-Insensitive model is the smallest compromise model yet capable of generating useful computing circuits. For this reason circuits are often incorrectly referred to as Delay-Insensitive when they are Quasi Delay-Insensitive.
See also
*
self-clocking signal
In telecommunications and electronics, a self-clocking signal is one that can be decoded without the need for a separate clock signal or other source of synchronization. This is usually done by including embedded synchronization information with ...
*
delay-tolerant networking
Delay-tolerant networking (DTN) is an approach to computer network architecture that seeks to address the technical issues in heterogeneous networks that may lack continuous network connectivity. Examples of such networks are those operating in mo ...
References
External links
"Delay-Insensitive Codes -- An Overview"by Tom Verhoeff
* "TITAC: Design of A Quasi-Delay-Insensitive Microprocessor" by Takashi Nanya et al. 1994
* "A Quasi Delay-Insensitive Bus Proposal for Asynchronous Systems" by Pedro A. Molina and Peter Y. K. Cheung 1997
"Quasi-Delay-Insensitive Circuits are Turing-Complete"by Manohar, Rajit and Martin, Alain J. (1995)
edited by Tom Verhoeff
{{DEFAULTSORT:Delay Insensitive Circuit
Central processing unit