Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development

The Center for Asynchronous Circuit and Systems Design was established in 1997 to complete the development of software design tool that will allow engineers to efficiently design digital circuits that do not require a global clock in order to operate.

While most of today's digital systems use a synchronous global clock to coordinate operations within an integrated circuit, the challenge of distributing such global clock signals becomes increasingly difficult as circuit densities increase. Asynchronous circuits do not require a global clock and therefore do not require clock distribution lines as traditional synchronous circuits do. Industry has not moved to asynchronous design in large part owing to a lack of computer aided design (CAD) tools supporting this technology. Meeting this need is the direct target of this Center. This Center is working with companies such as Intel and IBM not only to help solve their future asynchronous design problems, but also their current difficulties in the analysis and verification of high-speed integrated circuits.

• Significant design verification work was completed at IBM's Austin Research Laboratory, which has resulted in a non-exclusive license agreement with IBM to evaluate the Center's analysis tool in IBM's design flow.

• The center worked in collaboration with Sonic Innovations, a spin-out of another Center, designing digital hearing aids. The Center is designing an asynchronous version of their hearing aid that will significantly reduce circuit size and power consumption.