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Asynchronous Logic: Ready For It?

Posted by Hemos on from the is-now-the-time dept.

prostoalex writes "For a while academia and R&D labs explored the possibilities of asynchronous logic. Now Bernard Cole from Embedded.com tells us that asynchronous logic might receive more acceptance than expected in modern designs. The main advantages, as article states, are 'reduced power consumption, reduced current peaks, and reduced electromagnetic emission', to quote a prominent researcher from Philips Semiconductors. Earlier Bernard Cole wrote a column on self-timed asynchronous logic."

3 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. What's wrong with synchronous? by phorm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    On the flip side, the millions of simultaneous transitions in synchronous logic begs for a better way, and that may well be asynchronous logic

    The advantage outlined here seems to be independant functionality between different areas of the PC. It would be nice if the components could work independently and time themselves, but is there really a huge loss in sustained synchonous data transfer?

    From what I've understood, in most aspects of computing, synchronous data communication is preferable. IE, network cards, sound-cards, printers, etc. Don't better models support bi-directional synchronous communication?

  2. Cyclic History by nurb432 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Isn't this where the idea of digital logic really got started? At least its how it was taught when I was in school.

    We even did some design work in async. Cool stuff. Easy to do, fast as hell...

    Never did figure out why it never caught on. Except for the difficulty in being general purpose.. so easy of a job with sync logic. And i guess it does take a certian mind-set to follow it.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  3. Re:Kurzweil by imadork · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Why does everyone seem to think that ANNs are the way toward "true AI?" ANNs are superb pattern matching machines. They can predict, and are resilient to link damage to some degree. But they do not think. ANNs have nothing to do with what's really going on in a biological brain, except that they are made of many interacting simple processing elements. The biological brain inspired ANN, but that's all.

    I couldn't agree more. I remember reading a comparison between the current state of AI and the state of early Flight Technology. (it may have even been here, I don't recall. I make no claim to thinking this up myself. Perhaps someone can point me to a link discussing who first thought of this?)

    One of the reasons that early attempts at flight did not do well is because the people designing them merely tried to imitate things that fly naturally, without really understanding why things were built that way in the first place. So, people tried to make devices with wings that flapped fast, and they didn't work. It wasn't until someone (Bernoulli?) figured out how wings work - the scientific principles behind flight - that we were able to make flying machines that actually work.

    Current AI and "thinking machines" are in a similar state as the first attempts to fly were in. We can do a passable job at using our teraflops of computing power to do a brute-force imitation of thought. But until someone understands the basic scientific principles behind thought, we will never make machines that think.