HAL : hal-00389739, version 2

DOI : 10.1145/2043643.2043650

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ACM-JETC (Journal of Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems) 7, 4 (2011) Article n. 20

Versions disponibles :

v1 (29-05-2009)

v2 (19-12-2011)

Relativistic Causality and Clockless Circuits

Philippe Matherat 1, Marc-Thierry Jaekel 2

CNRS-LTCI and CNRS-LPTENS Collaboration(s)

(2011)

Time plays a crucial role in the performance of computing systems. The accurate modelling of logical devices, and of their physical implementations, requires an appropriate representation of time and of all properties that depend on this notion. The need for a proper model, particularly acute in the design of clockless delay-insensitive (DI) circuits, leads one to reconsider the classical descriptions of time and of the resulting order and causal relations satisfied by logical operations. This questioning meets the criticisms of classical spacetime formulated by Einstein when founding relativity theory and is answered by relativistic conceptions of time and causality. Applying this approach to clockless circuits and considering the trace formalism, we rewrite Udding's rules which characterize communications between DI components. We exhibit their intrinsic relation with relativistic causality. For that purpose, we introduce relativistic generalizations of traces, called R-traces, which provide a pertinent description of communications and compositions of DI components.

1 :	Laboratoire traitement et communication de l'information (LTCI)
	CNRS : UMR5141 – Institut Télécom – Télécom ParisTech
2 :	Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de l'ENS (LPTENS)
	CNRS : UMR8549 – Université Paris VI - Pierre et Marie Curie – Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris - ENS Paris

Domaine

:

Informatique/Calcul parallèle, distribué et partagé Informatique/Informatique mobile Informatique/Architecture Physique/Relativité Générale et Cosmologie Quantique

Mots Clés : Asynchronous circuits and systems – causality – clockless circuits – delay-insensitive – distributed processing – models of time – partial time-order – physical time – relativity – trace theory

hal-00389739, version 2

http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00389739

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Contributeur : Philippe Matherat <>

Soumis le : Lundi 19 Décembre 2011, 15:50:55

Dernière modification le : Lundi 26 Décembre 2011, 11:26:14