Asynchronous DC-free serial protocol for event-based AER systems

We developed an Asynchronous DC-free Serial Address-Event Representation (AS-AER) protocol. It allows for full-duplex communication and explicit flow control, does not require any clock data recovery or accurate clock relationship between the transmitter and receiver, and is based on AC-coupling that galvanically isolates communicating devices. The proposed reference implementation does not require any specific hardware and can be implemented on low-cost FPGAs and eventually ASICs. Preliminary tests performed at raw bit transfer rate of 100 Mbps confirm a 32 bit maximum event rate of 2.9Meps. Further tests with 16 bit events show a good tolerance to the clock difference between transmitter and the receiver, with no errors for a frequency difference up to ±2 %.