loading...
 This Article 
   
 Share 
   
 Bibliographic References 
   
 Add to: 
 
Digg
Furl
Spurl
Blink
Simpy
Google
Del.icio.us
Y!MyWeb
 
 Search 
   
Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition Volume I (DATE'04)
Synchro-Tokens: Eliminating Nondeterminism to Enable Chip-Level Test of Globally-Asynchronous Locally-Synchronous SoC?s
Paris, France
February 16-February 20
ISBN: 0-7695-2085-5
Matthew W. Heath, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Wayne P. Burleson, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Ian G. Harris, University of California at Irvine
Globally asynchronous locally synchronous (GALS) clocking applied to a system-on-a-chip (SoC) results in a design in which each core is a synchronous block (SB) of logic with a locally generated clock. Inter-core communication is asynchronous and controlled by wrapper logic around the cores. The nondeterministic synchronization used by most GALS architectures makes chip-level silicon debug and functional test difficult and costly. Deterministic GALS methodologies make dataflow assumptions which are only valid for a very limited set of applications. This paper describes a novel deterministic GALS methodology called "synchro-tokens" whose parameterized wrappers are flexible enough to be useful for a wide range of applications while supporting synchronous debug and test methodologies such as 1149.1 and P1500. The validation of determinism, estimation of area overhead, and analysis of performance impact are detailed.
Citation:
Matthew W. Heath, Wayne P. Burleson, Ian G. Harris, "Synchro-Tokens: Eliminating Nondeterminism to Enable Chip-Level Test of Globally-Asynchronous Locally-Synchronous SoC?s," date, vol. 1, pp.10410, Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition Volume I (DATE'04), 2004
Usage of this product signifies your acceptance of the Terms of Use.