Maelstrom: A Logic Synthesis Technique for Asynchronous Circuits

A new synthesis method and corresponding open-source tool, called Maelstrom, is introduced, that synthesizes CHP programs into asynchronous circuits. The method is agnostic to circuit family, and produces circuits that show significant improvements over the state-of-the-art synthesis techniques for asynchronous circuits in terms of energy, delay and area. The method also supports different datapath implementations and communication protocols. Pre-layout SPICE simulations of generated netlists of several CHP programs in a 65nm node indicate significant performance benefits over the current state of the art. Maelstrom has also been used to successfully synthesize and fabricate a chip from an abstract high-level functional description. This represents a qualitative improvement in logic synthesis of asynchronous logic from behavioral descriptions.