vrsyrotiuk@water.waterloo.edu (Violet Syrotiuk) (03/23/89)
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO
SEMINAR ACTIVITIES
SYSTEMS SEMINAR
- Tuesday, March 28, 1989
Dr. Charles E. Molnar, of the Institute for Biomedical
Computing at Washington University in St. Louis, will
speak on ``Metastability in Synchronizers and
Arbiters''.
TIME: 3:30 PM
ROOM: DC 1304
ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of metastability was recognized as early
as 1950, but has been generally ignored or denied by
most textbooks and designers of circuits and systems.
The problem arises when one attempts to communicate
between systems that do not share a common time
reference or clock, and manifests itself as a circuit
behavior that is not representable in most abstract
discrete models for computer system behavior. An
explanation of the phenomenon, and the reasons for
believing that it is fundamental and inescapable will
be presented. Some examples of the system problems
that it has caused, and some of the ingenious
rationalizations for its non-existence will be given.
Recent noise-free and noisy models for metastable
circuit behavior, and a method for deriving system
failure probabilities, will be described. An example
of the difficulties of simulation of metastable
behavior using SPICE will be given, with methods for
obtaining good estimates of circuit performance using
simulation models. Methods for avoiding or mitigating
the effects of metastable behavior will be discussed.
--
Violet R. Syrotiuk | vrsyrotiuk@water.uucp
Computer Science Dept. | watmath!water!vrsyrotiuk
University of Waterloo | vrsyrotiuk@water.uwaterloo.ca
Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1 | vrsyrotiuk@water.waterloo.edu (or .cdn)