Multiclock esterel

Abstract

We present the Multiclock Esterel language, which extends the synchronous language Esterel to multiple clock zones. While Esterel is good for compact single-clocked hardware or software designs, modern electronic designs are growing rapidly and they can no longer be designed in a monolithic fashion. Problems such as clock distribution, complexity, and power limitations have led designers to construct designs in a modular, multiple clock fashion. Multiclock Esterel is designed precisely to address this design style. It is a natural extension of Esterel, and retains its strong synchronous semantics and internal determinism. Statements driven by different clocks communicate through two special devices called the sampler and the reclocker. Multiclock Esterel should be understood as a preliminary language proposal meant to study multiclocking. It has not yet been validated by large experiments.