Design of Low-Power Asynchronous MSP430 Processor Core Using AFSM Based Controllers

As an asynchronous design method, TiDE tool chain supports the robust design flow at a high level with an asynchronous specialized language, HASTE. However, there is a limitation at an optimized step, since it is difficult for designers to know and manage inner synthesis operations. With a button-up manner based on the synthesis method with asynchronous finite state machine (AFSM), we design an asynchronous MSP430 core which is widely used in the sensor nodes. The designed asynchronous MSP430 core was compared with an already designed asynchronous MSP430 core which employed the TiDE tool flow and a clock based synchronous MSP430 core at 0.13 um CMOS technology. The maximum performance of the TiDE tool version was only 40.6 % of the synchronous or the AFSM version. The AFSM version saves the energy consumption of the synchronous version and the TiDE tool version by about 31.9 % and 28.8 %, respectively.

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