Behavior and synthesis of two-input-gate asynchronous circuits

This paper studies the behavioral properties of asynchronous circuits built of monotonic two-input gates (NAND2, NOR2 and NOT) and reveals the feasibility of a behavioral specification to be refined to two-input-gate-implementable form. An algebraic taxogram language was further developed to make it applicable to specifying the behavior refinement technique. The result of comparison of circuit realizations with their speed-independent counterparts produced by the petrify synthesis tool shows that there is still great unrealized potential for improving asynchronous circuit design. Producing circuits being hazard free in a wide range of variation in gate parameters as well as forgiving to shortages of the gate library, this approach offers new advantages for ASIC designs.