Implementation of Handshake Components

Handshake Technology is a clockless design style for digital circuits, targeted at applications where low energy consumption and ease of integration are essential. Communicating Sequential Processes play a role at various levels of representation. The design-entry language has parallel composition operators, communication channels for broadcast and narrowcast, and input and output actions on these channels. The intermediate architecture is based on Handshake Circuits, which is a network of components connected by handshake channels. In the implementation of these components in VLSI, models of communication again play a role. This paper presents how in Handshake Technology the specification and implementation of handshake components is addressed. It is based on a formal definition of handshake protocols, and outlines the obligation for an implementor to establish a relation between handshake events in the implementation and the specification. Examples of two phase, four phase, and spurious-acknowledge implementations of handshake control circuits are discussed.