System synchronization styles and trends

Sandeep Srinivasan, Synchronous Design Automation
Eby G. Friedman, University of Rochester, New York
(03/06/2006 9:00 AM EST), EE Times

This article describes emerging trends in synchronizing digital ICs and shows how process scaling, rapid increases in clock frequencies, and demand for lower power dissipation will affect the choice of synchronization styles going forward.

System synchronization controls the flow of events in a system. In the same manner that all signals are, in reality, analog in nature, all timing is in reality asynchronous. Despite this characteristic, local timing constraints can be placed on a system to permit the system to behave as if the system is completely synchronous.

This strategy uses a central clock signal to control the relative timing of events and is called synchronous clocking. Fully synchronous clocking makes it easier to understand the temporal behavior of events in a hardware system with reference to a clock edge.

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