Program

Keynotes

Industrializing an asynchronous technology: Tiempo from 2007 to 2025
by Marc Renaudin (Qualcomm Technologies Inc.)

This presentation traces the history of Tiempo, from its founding in 2007 to its acquisition by Qualcomm in January 2025. It highlights the major phases of the company’s development, the evolution of its business model, as well as the target markets, products, and their adoption by the industry. At the core of Tiempo’s success is an innovative hardware technology based on asynchronous circuits. This technology combines ASC, a dedicated asynchronous standard‑cell library complemented by a synchronous one, with the ACC synthesis tool, which maps SystemVerilog designs onto logic gates. Integrated into a complete design flow, these technologies enabled the development of Common Criteria–certified programmable platforms for smart cards and security enclaves, including both hardware and software IP.

 

Towards Local Learning and Asynchronous Silicon: A Co-Design Strategy for Neuromorphic Edge AI by Federico Corradi (Technical University of Eindhoven)

Deep Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) are limited by the high memory costs and global dependencies of standard backpropagation. We present a transition to local activity-based learning via Forward Propagation Through Time (FPTT) and Trace Propagation (TP), which reduce memory complexity to linear O(H * L) by eliminating temporal unrolling and spatial weight transport. While these algorithms theoretically enable efficient edge intelligence, their transition to silicon raises a fundamental challenge: at what point does the super-linear overhead of global clock distribution and activity gating become a “power wall” that asynchronous logic could breach? What are neuromorphic architectures that exploit asynchronous and synchronous logic for edge AI? To address these questions, we will examine state-of-the-art neuromorphic architectures across digital and mixed-signal domains. We will discuss the inherent benefits and drawbacks of mapping sparse, event-driven algorithms to both clocked and asynchronous substrates. Finally, we will explore the critical bottlenecks, such as hardware rigidity, process variations, and toolchain friction, to understand why continuous, on-chip learning is not yet fully exploited at the extreme edge, and outline the necessary steps to overcome these barriers.

 

Program

1-2 June Summer School

3. June

Wednesday 3rd
Time Event
08:00 Registration & breakfast snacks
09:00 Welcome
09:15 Session: Asynchronous circuit Synthesis (1h30)

  1. Taking Timing Out of the Equation: Moving Fully Automated Synthesis as close as possible to Delay-Insensitive Circuits
    Authors:     Karthi Srinivasan, Ole Richter, Jordan Schmerge and Rajit Manohar
  2. Generalized Binary Comparator Networks for QDI Combinational Logic Synthesis
    Authors: Florian Huemer and Dylan Baumann
  3. Improved Logic Synthesis for Asynchronous Circuits
    Authors: Karthi Srinivasan and Rajit Manohar
10:45 Break (coffee & snacks)
11:10 Keynote Industrializing an asynchronous technology: Tiempo from 2007 to 2025 by Marc Renaudin
12:10  Lunch in the Faculty Club
13:10 Session: Test of the asynchronous circuits (1h50)

  1. A-ATPG: A Graph-based Automatic Test Pattern Generation Method for the DfT Architecture of Asynchronous Bundled-data Circuits
    Authors: Xuanyu Zhang, Jilin Zhang, Marly Roncken and Hong Chen
  2. A Test Architecture for Bundled-Data Asynchronous NoC Switches Using Commercial ATPG Tools
    Authors: Iordana Gaisidou, Giuseppe Chessa, Giannoulas Ioannis, Artur Jutman, Davide Bertozzi and Christos Sotiriou
  3. Jumper: A State Capturing Element For Testability in Asynchronous Bundled-Data Circuits
    Authors: Ismael de Almeida Junior, Azzadine THAJTE, Cristiano Merio, Xavier Lesage, Adrien Godard, Ali Naimi, Sylvain Engels and Laurent Fesquet
  4. Automated FPGA-Based Wafer Testing of Asynchronous FlexICs
    Authors: Marcos Luiggi Lemos Sartori, Yushu Qin, Shengyu Duan, Yujin Zheng, Rishad Shafik and Alex Yakovlev
15:00 Break (coffee & snacks)
15:30 Demo Session (1h)

  1. ACTGen: Natural Language Assistant for Asynchronous Circuit Design
    Authors: Siva Nalabothu and Rajit Manohar
  2. ALPS: An Open-Source Low-Power Bundled-Data Design Flow using Standard EDA Tools
    Authors: Cristiano Merio, Adrien Godard, Gaël Ousset, Xavier Lesage, Jéssica Gonsalves Santos, Ismael de Almeida Junior, Ali Naimi, Azzadine Thajte, Ayoub Talbi, Thierry Grollier, Marc Quast, Sylvain Engels and Laurent Fesquet
16:30 Head to Copenhagen Center & short optional city walk
19:00 Conference Dinner

Thursday 4th
Time Event
08:00 Breakfast snacks & coffee
09:20 Fresh idea session (1h)

  1. Applications of asynchronous logic in power management and protection ICs
    Authors: David Cox and Filip Hormot
  2. Templated and open asynchronous periphery for mixed-signal neuromorphic chips 
    Authors: Hugh Gratorex, Madison Cotterert, Michele Mastella, Arianna Rubino, Ole Richter and Elisabetta Chicca
  3. Explicit Timestamp Propagation for Temporal Processing
    Authors: Xavier Lesage, Cristiano Merio, Azzadine THAJTE, Luca Sauer de Araujo, Fernando Welzel, Sylvain Engels and Laurent Fesquet
10:20 Break (coffee & snacks)
10:40 Session: Asynchronous circuit applications and models (1h30)

  1. An Energy-Proportional, High-Speed Serial Link
    Authors: Alex Huang, Robert Soule and Rajit Manohar
  2. ANP-E: A 22-nm Asynchronous Spiking Recurrent Neural Network Processor Enabling On-chip Learning for Physiological Signal Monitoring
    Authors: Yuan Hua, Chunqi Qian, Jilin Zhang and Hong Chen
  3. Amplifier Circuit-based Metastability Model
    Authors: Jürgen Burin, Afsah Anjum and Andreas Steininger
12:10 Lunch in the Faculty Club
13:10 Keynote 2 by Federico Corradi
14:10 Short break
14:25 Panel: “Open challenges for asynchronous digital integrated circuits in neuronal network hardware”

Moderator: Ole Richter
15:10 Break
15:30 Session: Efficient bundled-data and NEMS circuits

  1. Asymmetric Current-Starved Inverter Delay Lines for High-Performance Bundled-Data Circuits
    Authors: Jéssica Gonsalves Santos, Cristiano Merio, Adrien Godard, Ali Naimi, Robin Wilson, Sylvain Engels and Laurent Fesquet
  2. Effect of Self-Timed Design Styles on the Lifetime of NEMS Circuits
    Authors: Philipp Lehninger, Andreas Steininger and Axel Jantsch
  3. 74% Power Reduction in Bundled-Data Circuits Thanks to Clock Gating Integration
    Authors: Adrien Godard, Laurent Fesquet, Sylvain Engels and Robin Wilson
16:30 Closing session and Best Paper Award
16:50 Move to Copenhagen Center – visit Streetfood market Reffen (alternative program for bad weather)

Friday 5th
~ 9:15 till 14:00 (Kopenhagen) Trip to Viking Museum In Roskilde, with tour (https://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/en)

 

30th International Symposium on Asynchronous Circuits and Systems