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Nobuo KARAKI Takashi NANMOTO Satoshi INOUE
This paper presents an asynchronous design technique, an enabler for the emerging technology of flexible microelectronics that feature low-temperature processed polysilicon (LTPS) thin-film transistors (TFT) and surface-free technology by laser annealing/ablation (SUFTLA®). The first design instance chosen is an 8-bit microprocessor. LTPS TFTs are good for realizing displays having integrated VLSI circuit at lower costs. However, LTPS TFTs have drawbacks, including substantial deviations in characteristics and the self-heating phenomenon. To solve these problems, the authors adopted the asynchronous circuit design technique and developed an asynchronous design language called Verilog+, which is based on a subset of Verilog HDL® and includes minimal primitives used for describing the communications between modules, and the dedicated tools including a translator called xlator and a synthesizer called ctrlsyn. The flexible 8-bit microprocessor stably operates at 500 kHz, drawing 180 µA from a 5 V power source. The microprocessor's electromagnetic emissions are 21 dB less than those of the synchronous counterpart.
Hideyuki ITO Ryusuke KONISHI Hiroshi NAKADA Kiyoshi OGURI Minoru INAMORI Akira NAGOYA
This paper describes the realization of a dynamically reconfigurable logic LSI based on a novel parallel computer architecture. The key point of the architecture is its dual-structured cell array which enables dynamic and autonomous reconfiguration of the logic circuits. The LSI was completed by successfully introducing two specific features: fully asynchronous logic circuits and a homogeneous structure, only LUTs are used.