Globally-asynchronous locally-synchronous systems

This thesis provides a new framework for the design of very high performance digital machines. The new theoretical results which are presented have practical implications, and lead to a better understanding of possibilities and limitations in the design of computers, communication hardware and other digital machinery. The discussion centers on different organizations for globally-asynchronous, locally-synchronous systems, and covers the following issues: organizations for complex digital systems, metastability as a limitation for high performance, structures for two classes of non-conventional architectures, optimization, performance, reliability, and design techniques. We present new algorithms to compile the specifications of such machines onto efficient circuits, and to verify the correctness of the resulting machines. The models we developed for the analysis of the tradeoffs between different variables that affect the safety of operation of these systems, show that the proposed organizations result in extremely fast and reliable digital machines. The proposed organizational schemes can be used within a wide range of architectures, and integrated circuits designed according to this methodology have been developed and tested.