The design of an asynchronous TinyRISCTM TR4101 microprocessor core

This paper presents the design of an asynchronous version of the TR4101 embedded microprocessor core developed by LSI Logic Inc. The asynchronous processor, called ARISC, was designed using the same CAD tools and the same standard cell library that was used to implement the TR4101. The paper reports on the design methodology, the architecture, the implementation, and the performance of the ARISC. This includes a comparison with the TR4101, and a detailed breakdown of the power consumption in the ARISC. ARISC is our first attempt at an asynchronous implementation and a number of simplifying decisions were made up front. Throughout the entire design we use four-phase handshaking in combination with a normally opaque latch controller. All logic is implemented using static logic standard cells. Despite this the ARISC performs surprisingly well: In 0.35 μm CMOS performance is 74-123 MIPS depending on the instruction mix, and at 74 MIPS the power efficiency is 635 MIPS/Watt