TITLE: Performance Analysis of an Arbiter using
       Probabilistic Timed Petri Nets

AUTHORS: Marco A. Escalante, Luciano Lavagno, Nikitas J. Dimopoulos

IN:
         Proceedings of the International Workshop
         on Logic Synthesis,
         Lake Tahoe, May 1997.

ABSTRACT

Asynchronous circuits have experienced a resurgence due 
to potential advantages to low-power and high-speed 
design. The timed signal transition graph model, an
interpreted Petri net, is a formal specification that is
capable to characterize the temporal behavior of asynchronous
circuits by utilizing interval delays. However asynchronous 
circuits are prone to metastability, which may subside after 
an arbitrarily long time. Thus an interval analysis yields a 
very pessimistic description of the performance bounds. In 
this paper we take a probabilistic approach based on a 
Petri net model to study the effect of metastability in the 
performance of asynchronous circuits. We illustrate our 
approach by modeling the Seitz' arbiter as a case study.