1 research outputs found
Metastability-Resilient Synchronization FIFO for SFQ Logic
Digital single-flux quantum (SFQ) technology promises to meet the demands of
ultra low power and high speed computing needed for future exascale
supercomputing systems. The combination of ultra high clock frequencies,
gate-level pipelines, and numerous sources of variability in SFQ circuits,
however, make low-skew global clock distribution a challenge. This motivates
the support of multiple independent clock domains and related clock domain
crossing circuits that enable reliable communication across domains. Existing
J-SIM simulation models indicate that setup violations can cause clock-to-Q
increases of up to 100%. This paper first shows that naive SFQ clock domain
crossing (CDC) first-in-first-out buffers (FIFOs) are vulnerable to these delay
increases, motivating the need for more robust CDC FIFOs. Inspired by CMOS
multi-flip-flop asynchronous FIFO synchronizers, we then propose a novel 1-bit
metastability-resilient SFQ CDC FIFO that simulations show delivers over a 1000
reduction in logical error rate at 30 GHz. Moreover, for a 10-stage FIFO, the
Josephson junction (JJ) area of our proposed design is only 7.5% larger than
the non-resilient counterpart. Finally, we propose design guidelines that
define the minimal FIFO depth subject to both throughput and burstiness
constraints.Comment: Accepted in ISEC 201