10 Jul
2007
10 Jul
'07
10:50 a.m.
I'd actually like to see a clockless machine, one
where the whole
machine is one big asynchronous oscillator, with nothing ever stalling
waiting for a clock pulse.
Async machines have been done (PDP-6 and KA10, for example).
I suspect the reason it hasn't been done is that
it's harder for humans
to chunk the design into understandable pieces that way. But if
computer assist for design ever gets good enough to design a CPU that a
human doesn't have to understand, we'll see speeds take off in a way
that makes Moore's law look sick.
The problem with clockless machines is that they are extremely hard to
design for speed, and are prone to be glitchy and unreliable.
--
Will