GOALI: Extreme Environment Microcontrollers

GOALI：极端环境微控制器

• 批准号: 1607285
• 负责人: Jia Di
• 金额: $ 34.92万
• 依托单位: University of Arkansas
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2021-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1607285&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: GOALI; Extreme; Environment; Microcontrollers

AbstractGOALI: Extreme Environment MicrocontrollersProject Objectives:The market needs of extreme environment electronics encompass many commercial applications such as integrated gate drivers in power industry, in-engine sensing and control in automobile industry, well condition monitoring and drilling assistance in oil/gas exploration, cryogenic high-field magnet creation in medical imaging instrumentation, and many others like superconducting computing and energy storage systems, laser industry, space exploration, in-field distributed sensors, magnetic levitation transport systems, and infrared systems.Non-Technical Abstract:The extreme environments pose significant challenges to electronics, especially for digital integrated circuits: for extreme temperature environments, since the circuit speed is a strong function of temperature, timing control becomes very difficult across wide temperature ranges; for unstable energy source environment, the unstable or low power supply causes large variations in circuit speed as well. In the prevailing clocked synchronous digital integrated circuits, synchronized clocks are used to control and coordinate the circuit operation, along with a set of timing constraints such as setup and hold times. These critical timing constraints can be easily broken in extreme environments due to the circuit speed changes, thereby inducing system malfunction. Therefore, innovations are needed to solve these problems and develop extreme environment electronics in order to make contributions to the commercial industry discussed above in efficient and reliable sensing, communication, control, and data processing subsystems.Technical AbstractThis GOALI project is a collaborative effort between the University of Arkansas and Radiance Technologies to develop quasi-delay insensitive asynchronous microcontrollers capable of operating reliably under extreme environments without extra protection or control/adjustment. Quasi-delay insensitive asynchronous logic like the NULL Convention Logic (NCL) uses local handshaking protocols in lieu of global clocks to control the circuit behavior. Individual gate delay has no impact on the correctness of the circuit's outputs. This feature guarantees robust circuit operation under extreme environments, making NCL a promising candidate for designing microcontrollers for such applications. However, innovations in microcontroller architecture and NCL circuit design are needed to improve performance, reduce overhead, and enhance the robustness: at the architecture-level, the prevailing bus architecture is unsuitable for NCL and needs to be replaced; the distributed storage mechanism is the weakest link of circuit operation and needs to be reorganized; and the external interrupt handling needs to redesigned as fully asynchronous. At the circuit-level, transistors need to be resized to improve the reliability under extreme environments; NCL logic gate design needs to be modified for low supply voltages; and NCL logic transformation needs to be investigated to improve the performance. With the industry-standard guidance, experience, and assistance from Radiance Technologies, a prototype NCL microcontroller incorporating the above innovations will be designed, fabricated, and tested. The results will be analyzed for further improvements, dissemination, and technology transfer for potential commercialization.

AbstractGOALI: Extreme Environment MicrocontrollersProject Objectives:The market needs of extreme environment electronics encompass many commercial applications such as integrated gate drivers in power industry, in-engine sensing and control in automobile industry, well condition monitoring and drilling assistance in oil/gas exploration, cryogenic high-field magnet creation in medical imaging instrumentation, and many others like superconducting computing and energy storage systems, laser industry, space exploration,内场分布式传感器，磁性悬浮传输系统和红外系统。非技术摘要：极端环境对电子设备构成了重大挑战，尤其是对于数字集成电路：对于极端温度环境，由于电路速度是温度的强大功能，因此定时控制变得非常困难，在广泛的温度范围内变得非常困难；对于不稳定的能源环境，不稳定或低电源也会导致电路速度的差异。在盛行的时钟同步数字集成电路中，同步时钟用于控制和协调电路操作，以及一组正时约束，例如设置和保持时间。由于电路速度的变化，这些关键的时序约束很容易在极端环境中破裂，从而引起了系统故障。 Therefore, innovations are needed to solve these problems and develop extreme environment electronics in order to make contributions to the commercial industry discussed above in efficient and reliable sensing, communication, control, and data processing subsystems.Technical AbstractThis GOALI project is a collaborative effort between the University of Arkansas and Radiance Technologies to develop quasi-delay insensitive asynchronous microcontrollers capable of operating reliably under extreme environments without extra保护或控制/调整。准戴式逻辑（NULL惯例逻辑（NCL））使用本地握手协议代替全局时钟来控制电路行为。单个门延迟对电路输出的正确性没有影响。此功能保证了在极端环境下的强大电路操作，使NCL成为为此类应用设计微控制器的有前途的候选人。但是，需要微控制器体系结构和NCL电路设计的创新来提高性能，降低开销和增强鲁棒性：在体系结构级别上，盛行的总线体系结构不适合NCL，需要更换；分布式存储机制是电路运行的最弱连接，需要重新组织；而且外部中断处理需要重新设计为完全异步。在电路级别，需要调整晶体管以提高极端环境下的可靠性； NCL逻辑门设计需要为低电源电压进行修改；需要研究NCL逻辑转换以提高性能。借助Radiance Technologies的行业标准指导，经验和协助，将设计，制造和测试将纳入上述创新的原型NCL微控制器进行设计。结果将进行分析，以进一步改进，传播和技术转移，以进行潜在商业化。