SAMIPS: A Synthesised Asynchronous MIPS Processor



SAMIPS is a Synthesisable asynchronous implementation of the MIPS R3000 processor core, supporting precise exceptions.  SAMIPS was designed,  modelled and automatically synthesised within the Balsa system. The development of SAMIPS took place at the University of Birmingham and was led by Professor Georgios Theodoropoulos as part of a collaborative research project with Professor Stephen Furber's APT Group   in Manchester.

Amongst its several novelties, SAMIPS incorporates:  


  • A novel Asynchronous Forwarding Mechanism to deal with Data Hazards (the Data Hazard Detection Table, DHDT) 
  • A novel distributed colouring algorithm for control hazards in asynchronous pipelines. The algorithm is cited by ARM for their approach to support different security modes in ARM processors (US Patent 7305712).

Software

  • The Balsa source model of SAMIPS is here.

Publications

  • Theodoropoulos, G., Zhang, Q., “A Distributed Colouring Scheme for Dealing with Control Hazards in Asynchronous Microprocessors”, The 7th International Symposium on Parallel Architectures, Algorithms, and Networks (I-SPAN 2004), May 10-12, 2004, Hong Kong. ISSN: 1087-4089, ISBN: 0-7695-2135-5. Pages 266-271. DOI Bookmark: 10.1109/ISPAN.2004.1300491
  •  Zhang, Q., Theodoropoulos, G.,  “Modelling SAMIPS: A Synthesisable Asynchronous MIPS Processor”, 37th Annual Simulation Symposium (IEEE/ACM/SCS), Part of the Advanced Simulation Technologies Conference (ASTC 2004), Hyatt Regency Crystal City Arlington, VA, April 18 - 22, 2004. ISSN: 1080-241X, ISBN:0-7695-2110-X, Pages: 205 – 212. DOI Bookmark: 10.1109/SIMSYM.2004.1299484 
  • Zhang, Q., Theodoropoulos, G., “Towards an Asynchronous MIPS Processor",  The 8th Asia-Pacific Computer Systems Architecture Conference, (ACSAC'2003), Aizu-Wakamatsu City, Japan, September 23 - 26, 2003.  Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 2823, ISBN 3-540-20122-X. Pages 137-150. DOI Bookmark: 10.1007/13479 
  • Zhang, Q., Theodoropoulos, G., "Towards an Asynchronous MIPS Processor", Presentation at the 3rd Working Group on Asynchronous Circuit Design Workshop (EC FP5 ACiD-WG), Heraklion, Crete, Greece, January 27-28, 2003.