Robert S. Aviles


Session

06-16
18:10
15min
Timing-Aware Optimizations for High-Performance Digital SFQ Circuits
Robert S. Aviles

Single Flux Quantum (SFQ) digital logic enables power-efficient high performance computing for quantum computing, neural networks, and space applications. However, scalability is hindered by high area overhead from gate-level path balancing and large splitter trees requiring excessive pipelining. Prior attempts to reduce area using multi-phase clocking and asynchronous designs have led to substantial throughput reductions, undermining SFQ’s performance advantages. To address this, we propose a timing-aware circuit optimization method that reduces area without sacrificing performance. Our approach accounts for gate delays while jointly optimizing splitter tree topology and gate-level clocking assignments to efficiently pipeline datapaths, achieving high performance with reduced area. Applied to multi-phase clocking, it relaxes strict path balancing constraints while maintaining full path balancing performance. Experimental results on benchmark circuits show a 34% area reduction at 50 GHz compared to prior FPB methods, while timing-aware multi-phase clocking achieves a 27% area reduction and a 30% latency reduction compared to 33 GHz FPB. These results highlight the potential for integrating timing-aware synthesis with physical design methodologies to further optimize SFQ circuits. Future work aims to incorporate wire delays and predictive placement for improved scalability and performance.

Simulation and EDA Tools
Room "Berlin & Oslo"