Abstract—This paper describes an investigation of potential advantages and pitfalls of applying an asynchronous design methodology to an advanced microprocessor architecture. A prototype complex instruction set length decoding and steering unit was implemented using self-timed circuits. [The Revolving Asynchronous Pentium® Processor Instruction Decoder (RAPPID) design implemented the complete Pentium II® 32-bit MMX instruction set.] The prototype chip was fabricated on a 0.25-CMOS process and tested successfully. Results show significant advantages—in particular, performance of 2.5–4.5 instructions per nanosecond—with manageable risks using this design technology. The prototype achieves three times the throughput and half the latency, dissipating only half the power and requiring about the same area as the fastest commercial 400-MHz clocked circuit fabricated on the same process.
Type
text;
citation_publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
citation_volume
36
citation_issue
2
citation_firstpage
217
Citation_lastpage
228
citation_language
eng;
Bibliographic Citation
Stevens, K., Rotem, S., Ginosar, R., Beerel, P. A., Myers, C. J., Yun, K., Kol, R., Dike, C., & Roncken, M. (2001). An asynchronous instruction length decoder. IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits, 36(2), 217-28. February.
Rights Management
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