Estimation of energy consumption in speed-independent control circuits

We describe a technique to estimate the energy consumed by speed-independent asynchronous (clock-less) control circuits. Because speed-independent circuits are hazard-free under all possible combinations of gate delays, we prove that an accurate estimate of their energy consumption is independent of relative component gate delays and can be determined by simulating only a small number of input patterns proportional to the size of the circuit's Signal Transition Graph specification. Specifically, we calculate the average energy per external signal transition consumed by a circuit. This can be used to compare the energy consumption between two different circuit implementations of the same specification, to calculate average energy for a given high-level operation, and to provide average circuit power when combined with delay information.

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