The NSR processor prototype

The NSR (Non-Synchronous RISC) processor is a general purpose processor structured as a collection of self-timed units that operate concurrently and communicate over bundled data channels in the style of micropipelines. These units correspond to standard synchronous pipeline stages such as Instruction Fetch, Instruction Decode, Execute, Memory Interface, and Register File, but each operates concurrently as a separate self-timed process. In addition to being internally self-timed, the units are decoupled through self-timedFIFO queues between each of the units which allows a high degree of overlap in instruction execution. Branches, jumps, and memory accesses are also decoupled through the use of additional FIFO queues which can hide the execution latency of these instructions. The prototype implementation of the NSR has been constructed using Actel FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays).