Asynchronous Early Output Dual-Bit Full Adders Based on Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Delay-Insensitive Data Encoding

This paper presents the designs of asynchronous early output dual-bit full adders without and with redundant logic (implicit) corresponding to homogeneous and heterogeneous delay-insensitive data encoding. For homogeneous delay-insensitive data encoding only dual-rail i.e. 1-of-2 code is used, and for heterogeneous delay-insensitive data encoding 1-of-2 and 1-of-4 codes are used. The 4-phase return-to-zero protocol is used for handshaking. To demonstrate the merits of the proposed dual-bit full adder designs, 32-bit ripple carry adders (RCAs) are constructed comprising dual-bit full adders. The proposed dual-bit full adders based 32-bit RCAs incorporating redundant logic feature reduced latency and area compared to their non-redundant counterparts with no accompanying power penalty. In comparison with the weakly indicating 32-bit RCA constructed using homogeneously encoded dual-bit full adders containing redundant logic, the early output 32-bit RCA comprising the proposed homogeneously encoded dual-bit full adders with redundant logic reports corresponding reductions in latency and area by 22.2% and 15.1% with no associated power penalty. On the other hand, the early output 32-bit RCA constructed using the proposed heterogeneously encoded dual-bit full adder which incorporates redundant logic reports respective decreases in latency and area than the weakly indicating 32-bit RCA that consists of heterogeneously encoded dual-bit full adders with redundant logic by 21.5% and 21.3% with nil power overhead. The simulation results obtained are based on a 32/28nm CMOS process technology

Media Usage in Post-Secondary Education and Implications for Teaching and Learning

The Web 2.0 has permeated academic life. The use of online information services in post-secondary education has led to dramatic changes in faculty teaching methods as well as in the learning and study behavior of students. At the same time, traditional information media, such as textbooks and printed handouts, still form the basic pillars of teaching and learning. This paper reports the results of a survey about media usage in teaching and learning conducted with Western University students and instructors, highlighting trends in the usage of new and traditional media in higher education by instructors and students. In addition, the survey comprises part of an international research program in which 20 universities from 10 countries are currently participating. Further, the study will hopefully become a part of the ongoing discussion of practices and policies that purport to advance the effective use of media in teaching and learning

Low Power Processor Architectures and Contemporary Techniques for Power Optimization – A Review

The technological evolution has increased the number of transistors for a given die area significantly and increased the switching speed from few MHz to GHz range. Such inversely proportional decline in size and boost in performance consequently demands shrinking of supply voltage and effective power dissipation in chips with millions of transistors. This has triggered substantial amount of research in power reduction techniques into almost every aspect of the chip and particularly the processor cores contained in the chip. This paper presents an overview of techniques for achieving the power efficiency mainly at the processor core level but also visits related domains such as buses and memories. There are various processor parameters and features such as supply voltage, clock frequency, cache and pipelining which can be optimized to reduce the power consumption of the processor. This paper discusses various ways in which these parameters can be optimized. Also, emerging power efficient processor architectures are overviewed and research activities are discussed which should help reader identify how these factors in a processor contribute to power consumption. Some of these concepts have been already established whereas others are still active research areas. © 2009 ACADEMY PUBLISHER

Latency Optimized Asynchronous Early Output Ripple Carry Adder based on Delay-Insensitive Dual-Rail Data Encoding

Asynchronous circuits employing delay-insensitive codes for data representation i.e. encoding and following a 4-phase return-to-zero protocol for handshaking are generally robust. Depending upon whether a single delay-insensitive code or multiple delay-insensitive code(s) are used for data encoding, the encoding scheme is called homogeneous or heterogeneous delay-insensitive data encoding. This article proposes a new latency optimized early output asynchronous ripple carry adder (RCA) that utilizes single-bit asynchronous full adders (SAFAs) and dual-bit asynchronous full adders (DAFAs) which incorporate redundant logic and are based on the delay-insensitive dual-rail code i.e. homogeneous data encoding, and follow a 4-phase return-to-zero handshaking. Amongst various RCA, carry lookahead adder (CLA), and carry select adder (CSLA) designs, which are based on homogeneous or heterogeneous delay-insensitive data encodings which correspond to the weak-indication or the early output timing model, the proposed early output asynchronous RCA that incorporates SAFAs and DAFAs with redundant logic is found to result in reduced latency for a dual-operand addition operation. In particular, for a 32-bit asynchronous RCA, utilizing 15 stages of DAFAs and 2 stages of SAFAs leads to reduced latency. The theoretical worst-case latencies of the different asynchronous adders were calculated by taking into account the typical gate delays of a 32/28nm CMOS digital cell library, and a comparison is made with their practical worst-case latencies estimated. The theoretical and practical worst-case latencies show a close correlation....Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1704.0761