Stochastic cycle period analysis in timed circuits

This paper presents a technique to estimate the stochastic cycle period (SCP), a performance metric for timed asynchronous circuits. This technique uses timed stochastic Petri nets (TSPN) which support choice and arbitrary delay distributions. The SCP is the delay of the average path in a TSPN when represented as a sum of weighted place delays. A place delay is the expected value of its associated distribution and its weight denotes its importance in the average path of the TSPN. The approach analyzes finite execution traces of the TSPN to derive an expression for the weight values in the SCP. The weights can be analyzed with basic statistics to within an arbitrary error bound. This paper demonstrates the use of the SCP to aggressively optimize timed asynchronous circuits for improved average-case performance by reducing transistor counts, reordering input pins at gates, and skewing transistor sizes to favor important transitions. Each optimization effort is directed to improve the average-case delay in the circuit at the possible expense of the worst-case delay.