Breaking step-the return of asynchronous logic

The last decade has seen a remarkable growth in the interest in asynchronous techniques, despite the paucity of demonstrations of merit and the design and test difficulties. Some companies now appear ready to accept the risks for the potential benefits, and an atmosphere of expectancy has arisen which may not be sustainable for long. The author thinks that asynchronous designs will gain a significant commercial foothold over the next five years, attracting the level of resource which is required to make them competitive. Whilst asynchronous design has perceived advantages over clocked design, there is a marked shortage of convincing demonstrations that these advantages apply to practical designs of commercial interest. Considerably more concrete evidence that asynchronous circuits can be designed and tested at competitive cost is needed; without this, most of the world´s design community will continue to view asynchronous techniques as academic curiosities pursued only for their qualities of “truth and beauty”