A high-throughput, metastability-free GALS channel based on pausible clock method

• Published in: 2nd Asia Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ASQED) pp. 294 - 300
• Main Authors: Rahimian, M A, Mohammadi, S, Fattah, M
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01-08-2010
• Subjects: Clocks; CMOS process; Data communication; Delay; Frequency synchronization; GALS; metastability free; Metastasis; pausible clock; Predictive models; Propagation losses; Throughput; transceiver; Transmitters
• ISBN: 9781424478095; 142447809X
• DOI: 10.1109/ASQED.2010.5548259

Synchronization issues such as metastability in multi-clock domain systems have become a big problem, reducing data transmission throughput between domains. In this paper, a high-throughput, metastability-free data transmission channel based on pausible clock method in Globally-Asynchronous Locally-Synchronous (GALS) systems is proposed. This channel can be used as the interconnection of mixed-clock synchronous IP cores without having concerns about their synchronization. We show that the probability of metastability in our design is practically zero; and this without loss of throughput and latency, allowing the transmitter and receiver to operate with their own maximum clock frequency. The proposed channel is simulated in 90nm CMOS process using Predictive Technology Model (PTM) library. Gate delays and power parameters are extracted from Spice simulations and are back annotated into our channel HDL code. The throughput, latency and power are analyzed and compared with existing designs.