Report Number: CSL-TR-93-579
Institution: Stanford University, Computer Systems Laboratory
Title: Comparative Studies of Pipelined Circuits
Author: Klass, Fabian
Author: Flynn, Michael J.
Date: July 1993
Abstract: Wave pipelining is an attractive technique used in high-speed computer systems to speed-up pipeline rate without partitioning a system into pipeline stages. Although recent implemetations have reported very high-speed operation rates, a real evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of wave pipelining requires a comparative study with other techniques, in particular the understanding of the trade-offs between conventional and wave pipelining is very important. This study is an attempt to provide approximate models which can be used as first-order tools for comparative study or sensitivity analysis of conventional and wave pipelined systems with different overheads. The models presented here are for subsystem-level pipelines. The product Latency x Cycle-Time is used as a measure of performance and is evaluated as a function of all the parameters of a design, such as the propagation delay of the combinational logic, the data skew resulting from the difference between maximum and minimum propagation delays through various logic paths, rise and fall time, the setup time, hold time, and propagation delay through registers, and the uncontrollable clock skew. In this way, an analytical basis is provided for a comparison between different approaches and for optimizations.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/csl/tr/93/579/CSL-TR-93-579.pdf