A low-power globally synchronous locally asynchronous FFT processor

Abstract

Low-power design became crucial with the widespread use of the embedded systems, where a small battery has to last for a long period. The embedded processors need to efficient in order to achieve real-time requirements with low power consumption for specific algorithms. Transport Triggered Architecture (TTA) offers a cost-effective trade-off between the size and performance of ASICs and the programmability of general-purpose processors. The main advantages of TTA are its simplicity and flexibility. In TTA processors, the special function units (SFUs) can be utilized to increase performance or reduce power dissipation. This paper presents a low-power globally synchronous locally asynchronous TTA processor using both asynchronous function units and synchronous function units. We solve the problem that use asynchronous circuits in TTA framework, which is a synchronous design environment. This processor is customized for a 1024-point FFT application. Compared to other reported implementations with reasonable performance, our design shows a significant improvement in energy-efficiency. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.