Synthesis of delay-insensitive circuits by refinement into atomic threads

An optimization strategy based on time-sharing was previously proposed by the authors (1991). A process is decomposed into threads and the technique of time-sharing is applied in the synthesis of each thread and the synchronization requirements among threads. This study presents an extension of the methodology to nondeterminate processes. The synchronization requirements among threads include the passing of choice information as well as the causal relations between events from different threads. Substantial reduction in circuitry for realizing the synchronization requirements is observed if the choice states of threads are atomic (necessarily reached) and all the occurrences of an action belong to a thread. A theory on extracting threads that have the above properties and on synthesizing the synchronization requirements among threads is outlined.< >