Patent Application: US-63026805-A

Abstract:
the invention relates to a method for distributed , fault - tolerant clock pulse generation in hardware systems , wherein the system clock pulse is generated in distribution by a plurality of intercommunicating fault - tolerant clock pulse synchronization algorithms , in which an arbitrary number of such ts - algs exchange information between one another via a user - defined and permanent network of clock pulse signals , susceptible to transient faults , and each ts - alg is assigned to one or more functional units , whose local clock pulses are generated by it , and further all local clock pulses are synchronized with respect to frequency in an assured manner , and a specified number of transient and / or permanent faults may occur in the ts - algs or in the ts - net , without adversely affecting the clock pulse generation and / or the synchronization accuracy , and the system clock pulse automatically achieves the maximum possible frequency . the invention further relates to such a hardware system .

Description:
based on the considerations discussed previously concerning the prior art technology , the virtually asynchronous or the gals approach would have been very attractive if it had been possible to find a conceptually elegant solution to the problem with asynchronous communication between the synchronous islands . thus , in addition , one should assume a structure consisting of locally synchronized functional units ( modules ) on one chip , these not being phase - synchronized to each other , but are frequency - synchronized to each other . frequency synchronization in this context is concerned with matching the frequency of two or more clock pulse signals . here , in contrast to phase synchronization , the period of time involved is larger . it is absolutely permissible that substantial phase shifts occur between the clock pulses during the interim period ; however , what is decisive is that the number of phase changes in each time period under consideration may differ by not more than one a constant . ( from this it also follows that when considered over an infinite ( ie adequately large ) interval of time , all clock signals will have the same number of clock impulses .) if one were to connect a counter to the clock pulse signals , then the maximum deviation between the counter values over an arbitrarily large interval of time would be a measure of the quality of the synchronization . in conjunction with clock synchronization this feature would also be termed as precision . unlike clock synchronization , parity of the frequency is continuously guaranteed in the case of the proposed frequency synchronization , instead of introducing or suppressing local impulses (“ rate correction ”) and / or making erratic corrections of the time (“ state correction ”). in general , the constraints in the case of clock synchronization are entirely different ( large distances , nodes with varying speeds and each having a local clock pulse etc .) from those of the subject under consideration at the chip level , and thus , even the solutions and quality benchmarks cannot be used here . in the context of the definitions given above concerning understanding synchronization , frequency synchronization thus represents a cross between phase synchronization and time synchronization . this is also clear when considering the time - related deviations . in the case of phase synchronization the shift between the clock pulse signals under consideration may under no circumstances be greater than ½ of the clock pulse cycle , and with time synchronization — owing to the entirely different assumptions mentioned above — a synchronization accuracy of 1 μs is considered to be very good ( cf section 2 . 3 )— this corresponds to 1000 clock pulse cycles at 1 ghz . in the light of the fact that phase synchronization can no longer be achieved over the entire chip , frequency synchronization with permissible deviations of a few clock pulse cycles represents a reasonable “ best effort ”. unlike the gals approach , therefore , the local clock pulses of the synchronous islands are now no longer uncorrelated , but instead , synchronous with respect to frequency . the synchronization required for this is achieved by establishing a global time reference with the help of a distributed algorithm common to all modules ( cf section 4 ). each module or an adequate number of modules (= one or more physically neighboring functional units ) of a vlsi chip should be increased by one very simple functional unit for this purpose , whose sole task is to execute this distributed algorithm and thus contribute to establishing the global time reference on the one hand , and , on the other , to derive the local clock pulse for the module . since the usual algorithms are based on the replication of a function on all nodes , this functional unit can be implemented in an identical manner on all modules . the important objective is to implement the functional unit using asynchronous logic in order to eliminate problems with meta - stability at the conceptual stage itself . purely from the practical point of view , this is also necessary since the clock pulse required for synchronous implementation of the algorithm should first be generated by the algorithm itself . the procedures suggested in the literature ( phase synchronization and also time synchronization ) assume the presence of multiple clock pulse sources , and the task of the procedure essentially consists of establishing suitable synchronization between the clock pulse signals supplied by these sources . the approach proposed here takes an entirely different route that has already broken new ground in [ fai04 ]: there are no local clock pulse generators in this case but rather , only local instances of one single common virtual clock pulse signal that is generated by the distributed algorithm . thus , in principle , there is no possibility of different signals diverging from one another , and phase shifts occur only from the algorithm execution or processing times . thus the object of the method , in this case , consists in generating the clock pulse in conformity with appropriate rules . in sharp contrast to [ fai04 ], whose implementation does not permit a constant synchronization accuracy , fault tolerance and a guaranteed maximum phase shift (= synchronization accuracy ) can be established elegantly and with relative ease with a distributed algorithm presented in the following sections . the local clock pulse generated in this manner is distributed with the aid of a simple clock tree on the module fed by it , which is non - critical since the functional units of a given module are physically next to each other . by means of suitable mapping of the local clock pulse ( microticks ) on a low - frequency global clock pulse ( macrotick ) a consistent synchronous time basis can finally be derived for all modules [ kopetz97 ]. this is possible because the phase shift between any two local clock pulse signals does not exceed a specific maximum value . the known problems of gals architectures with the synchronous / asynchronous interface can thus be conceptually easily overcome with the proposed method . the algorithm for generating the global clock pulse is implemented in conformity with the principles of asynchronous logic . this is , of course , expensive and cumbersome , but completely avoids meta - stabilities . the local functional units can be designed synchronously , as usual , on the basis of the local clock pulse , as long as no global communication is involved . owing to the existence of a global clock pulse , however , even the global data communication can be implemented using the customary synchronous design . here , too , possible problems with meta - stability can be completely eliminated with suitable selection of the macroticks . self generation of clock pulses with respect to the circuit , and thus savings in terms of the local clock pulse sources ( oscillators , quartz crystals ) with a guaranteed system - wide synchronization accuracy delimited by a constant . the chip works with the maximum possible clock frequency at all points of time replacement of the complex , energy - guzzling global clock tree by uncritical point - to - point connections optimal tradeoff with respect to maintaining the synchronous abstraction and the effective synchronism under the given physical constraints more fault - tolerant and permanent errors of the clock signals a possible implementation of this principle of operation is presented in detail in the following sections . the starting point is an existing convergence - based algorithm ( cf section 2 . 3 ) at the message level [ srikanth87 ]. this algorithm assumes a distributed system consisting of n computer nodes , all of which can communicate with one another with the help of messages using point - to - point connections ( fully networked structure , cf fig1 ). each node , thus , has n inputs and n outputs ( one each from / to one of the n − 1 other nodes plus one loop - back to itself ). the communication , in the broadest sense , takes place based on rounds , and , under fault - free conditions , each node sends at least one synchronization message in each round , simultaneously to all n outputs ( no assumptions are made here concerning other application - specific messages ). a common time base is established on the basis of these synchronization messages with the help of a distributed agreement . this agreement functions correctly with up to f faulty nodes ( ie up to f faulty or missing messages can be tolerated per node per round ), if n & gt ; 3f . it can thus be taken into consideration at the time of system design what number f of faults to be expected . when using the hybrid fault model presented in [ ws03 ] and [ widder03 ] the fault - tolerance can , in fact , be chosen to match the requirements more exactly . the algorithm delivers a time base in the form of a sequence of rounds numbered in increasing order , each round corresponding to one clock pulse step . the transition from one round to the next is fixed in such a manner as per the agreement that at each point of time a minimum degree of synchronization of all ( fault - free ) nodes in the network is guaranteed . in particular , the following can be guaranteed for the fault - free nodes . if at a given point of time one node is in round k , then , at the same point of time all other nodes are in round i , where | i − k |& lt ; θ + 2 . in this relationship , the quality parameter θ is defined by the ratio of the maximum to the minimum execution times of a message in the system . the time base is ( at first ) not synchronized with respect to an external ( absolute ) reference , but only within the system ( precision is guaranteed , but not accuracy ). the algorithm executes in an identical manner on all nodes , whereby the exchange of messages results in the desired interaction between the local copies , which ultimately leads to a continuous and autonomous execution of the algorithm . the dynamic behavior is determined by the local processing times for the algorithm and the respective execution times on the lines . the original algorithm is given in [ srikanth87 ] and here , a simplified version has been taken into consideration below , which appears to be more suitable to map onto the hardware . the execution begins at first with an initialization phase ( r ) and is then based primarily on two rules ( 1 ) and ( 2 ): thus , each node sets its local counter first to the value 1 and sends a corresponding message to all in order to initiate the execution of the algorithm . if one node receives the message “ k ” from at least f + 1 other nodes — ie from at least one fault - free node — then it itself sends the message “ k ” to all nodes including itself . since , as mentioned , the same algorithm runs at the same time on all other nodes , a so - to - speak global “ consensus picture ” emerges regarding the nodes that would be ready for the time period in round k + 1 . this rule can be used independently of the round ( local_tick ) in which the respective node is , as long as k & gt ; local_tick . if a node p receives the message “ k ” from at least 2f + 1 nodes ( incl . itself ), then there is clearly a qualified majority of nodes in round k which are ready to go into the round k + 1 . to put it more precisely , even in the worst case ( f faulty nodes ), there are still at least f + 1 correct nodes out of 2f + 1 nodes , which have already sent the message “ k ”. for all fault - free nodes therefore rule ( 1 ) must be fired so that a flood of “ k ” messages is to be expected and , as per rule ( 2 ) compulsorily all fault - free nodes would make a transition to the state k + 1 . node p thus increases its local rounds counter by one clock step and sends the corresponding message “ k + 1 ”. this rule , incidentally , is used only when the node concerned is itself in round k . the receipt of the synchronization message k from the node p by the node q thus corresponds to the message to node q to the effect that node p is of the opinion that it is ready to make a transition to round k + 1 , ie the global clock step should be increased by one . ( it is to be noted here that this does not necessarily mean that the node p is already in round k ie that it itself would make the transition to round k + 1 .) it must be noted that one node must send a given message ( ie “ k ”, for example ) only once . whichever of the two rules “ fires ” later , there is no longer any need to send a message , ie replicas of the same messages are rejected by the receiver . furthermore , the decisive factor is that the sender of a message can be identified without doubt ( thus , the requirement of a point - to - point connection ). otherwise , a faulty node could take on the identity of another node and send messages on their behalf . it is , moreover , also interesting to note that rule ( 1 ) will be applied to a node p prior to rule ( 2 ) only when the local_tick of at least f + 1 other nodes is ahead of that of p . node p , in this case , retains its handicap , but contributes to the formation of the opinion of the faster nodes by sending the corresponding message . after a reset , it must be ensured that all nodes are ready to receive . thereafter , each node sends out a message “ 1 ”, as already described , to initiate the algorithm properly . subsequently , the rules ( 1 ) and ( 2 ) begin to apply . laggards — ie nodes that are late in completing their initialization — can immediately be pulled up to the current state with the help of the so - called catch - up rule . the details of the start - up procedure are given in [ widder03 ]. on the basis of the algorithm a global clock pulse is generated in the form of “ rounds ” (= microticks ) in a distributed manner , which pulse ensures a pre - defined degree of synchronization on all participating ( fault - free ) nodes . the algorithm is time - independent and no restrictions whatsoever are necessary with respect to the message execution times ( and / or with respect to the response time to a message received ). merely the quotient θ of the maximum to the minimum execution time of the messages ( including the processing time ) determines the synchronization accuracy that can be achieved . one should note that the absolute execution times are insignificant for precision ( but are significant for accuracy , if external synchronization is desired ) [ widder04 ]. the time base established on the basis of the algorithm permits the temporal ordering of messages with a granularity of π ( θ ) microticks . its function and precision can be proved formally [ widder03 ] the proper start of the algorithm can be formally proved under specified conditions [ widder03 ] up to f ( even byzantine ) faults can be tolerated simultaneously . the fault tolerance can be simply scaled over the number of nodes . the algorithm described was originally envisaged for the synchronization of computer nodes in a distributed system . our approach now consists in using this algorithm to provide a synchronized frequency clock pulse for one or more hardware functional units ( hw - fu ) eg on a vlsi chip or on a system - on - a - chip , as far as possible without having to make any assumptions about individual execution times . this involves overcoming the following significant problems : with the synchronization algorithm implemented in software a precision of the order of 1 μs is regarded as being excellent . in the hardware , the usual clock pulse rates are of the order of many 100 mhz , with which the required precision ( considered on an absolute scale ) must thus be better by several orders of magnitude . even with respect to the θ value it is at least not common in the hardware , where the factor of interest is mostly only the phase shift between two clock pulses , and θ = 1 corresponds to 360 °, ie a complete clock cycle , and larger values correspond to multiple clock cycles . on the other hand , one can assume that the differences in the delay times of the messages would be substantially lower in the case of hardware implementation as against implementation in the software , since the typical problems for the software solution with queuing and degraded performance of the node would barely occur in the case of direct parallel processing in the hardware . the assumption of θ ≦ 2 thus appears to be quite realistic both in view of the typical requirements and also with respect to the specific constraints of the hardware . here , the selected algorithm proves itself to be extremely suitable , since only the relative deviation is taken into account . in the case of the algorithm being implemented in the software it is assumed that a communication medium already exists between the nodes . such a medium is required anyway for the exchange of application - related data ; the algorithm is only added to this existing structure and merely causes overheads with respect to the usable bandwidth . the required point - to - point connection must not necessarily be realized physically . the decisive factor is only that a receiver can uniquely associate a message with the sender — and for this purpose a virtual point - to - point communication is adequate , eg over a bus with associated addressing , sender identification and , if required , signature . furthermore , it must be ensured with the help of corresponding redundancy that this bus is fault - tolerant , in order to maintain the fault - tolerance of the entire system . however , in the hardware implementation provided , the algorithm serves merely to provide a global clock pulse signal . the infrastructure for the communication must be set up particularly for this purpose and is thus to be considered invariably as a hardware overhead . the use of the buses already existing for data communication can be ruled out , since the desired clock pulse rates could be achieved only when the bus is loaded to the extent of 100 % by the synchronization , thus making it unavailable for data communication . serial communication between the nodes can be ruled out , since no satisfactory results can be obtained therewith respect to frequency and synchronization accuracy ( as opposed to the software - based solution ). parallel connections can only then be implemented economically and meaningfully when physical point - to - point connections must not actually be established — this would mean n 2 parallel connections for the provision of only one clock pulse . the physical implementation as bus ( with virtual point - to - point connections ) in turn , leads to protocol overheads ( arbitration , sender - id plus signature , etc . ), which , in turn , substantially reduce the clock pulse rate and / or synchronization accuracy that can be achieved . in addition to this , a multiple redundant design would be necessary . the conventional solution — namely one single global clock line — is an unsurpassable reference forming a yardstick of the efficiency , which substantially hampers the acceptance of any new approach . it would thus appear to be necessary to reduce the information content of the messages to 1 bit , so that a simple 1 - bit signal is adequate for the physical point - to - point connection . the discussion regarding serial versus parallel transmission is superfluous in this case . a significant problem with the implementation of the algorithm is now to manage with this minimum 1 - bit piece of information . in particular , with this constraint it is not possible to transmit an explicit number ( k ) for the current round number as provided for in the algorithm . the k - values are transmitted incrementally ( ie as impulses ) and the corresponding absolute value is managed as a counter by the respective receiver . a sender id cannot be implemented in this way , which makes it mandatory for the design to implement a physical point - to - point connection . under the given constraints , it is meaningful to use the technique of transition signaling [ hauck95 ]. in the original algorithm booting is achieved by the majority of the nodes being initially in agreement with one another initially and then enabling progression of the clock pulse . laggards , as mentioned , are pulled up using the catch - up rule . this , however , requires knowledge of the absolute k - value , since the local counter of the slow node does not have the current reading . solutions would thus consist of ( a ) modification of the booting strategy so that one can manage without the catch - up rule , ( b ) the “ occasional ” transmission of the k - value or ( c ) the design of the hardware in such a manner that the counter operates on each node , regardless of whether the node itself has already been initialized or not . since the absolute value of k is not contained in the message , it is important to ensure that each of the rules is triggered only once for each k . moreover , it is for various reasons desirable to ensure see that each and every message is sent only once , ie only the earlier of the two rules is triggered . this requirement is difficult to implement in the hardware owing to the parallel feature ( both rules could , of course , trigger “ simultaneously ”). a possible solution is to use the rising or falling edge of the clock pulse as a flag for even and odd values of k respectively , so that sending of the same k - value within a short span of time can imply be avoided ( rising edge follows a rising edge ), while in the case of larger spans of time identical messages can be masked out in the conventional manner . in the software solution , there are no problems with the execution of even complex calculations in the computer nodes , since these can be done in the software . in the case of a purely hardware - based solution the required functionality must be implemented directly in the hardware ( eg state machine ), and even algorithmically simple calculations such as multiplication can lead to substantial overheads . in addition , the desired implementation using asynchronous logic causes further overheads . it should be remembered that n messages are received at each node , and , thus , a total of n 2 units must be implemented system - wide to process the messages received . there is no general solution available here , and optimizations must be carried out in detail , as far as possible , when effecting implementation in the hardware . for this purpose , it must be possible to convert the algorithm in such a manner that it can be mapped on to the hardware in an optimal manner . there are a host of problems to be resolved in the hardware implementation when one goes into the details , which are primarily concerned with the fact that in the case of processes running in parallel with different ( unknown ) execution times , it is problematic to arrange the order of execution , whereas these processes can run in an orderly and atomic manner in the software . attention is drawn to the fact that all solutions described so far have the common objective of achieving as efficient a mapping on the hardware as possible . the basic underlying method of using ) a distributed algorithm for frequency synchronization of nodes , and also their implementation in asynchronous hardware can also be realized in other ways . thus none of the decisions presented here is mandatory . the discussion presented above yields an intermeshed structure consisting of 1 - bit lines as illustrated in fig2 . fortunately , chip architectures that support this architecture have just come onto the market : for example , the noc ( network on chip ) design strategy supplied by arteris [ arteris04 ] was originally conceived for use with gals architectures is fitted with a switch fabric , which seems to support the required communication structures for data and clock pulses very well . it is implicitly assumed in the software solution that each computer node also has a local clock pulse independent of the globally synchronized time base , with which , for example , the local processor is driven . the temporal resolution of this local processor clock pulse is better by several orders of magnitude than the interval between the messages received and the precision of the global time . it is thus legitimate to assume that incoming messages are received and processed virtually continuously . however , the objective of the hardware solution is to manage even without a local clock pulse generator , but rather , to derive the local clock pulse from the distributed global clock pulse generated . hence , there is no a priori clock signal available to receive and process the messages . apparently , therefore , this algorithm can only start when all units relevant for the clock pulse generation work without a clock pulse , ie have been implemented in asynchronous logic ( shaded boxes in fig2 ). using an appropriate design one can thus also avoid meta - stability problems and race conditions , which would necessarily occur if the local logic ( ie with a local clock pulse ) were to be implemented using synchronous hardware . these asynchronous boxes would therefore be in a position to generate a clock pulse collectively , which they could then provide to their respective functional units hw - fun . in this manner , a global time base would be available , which , for example , simplifies the communication between the individual functional units or permits the synchronization of actions ( access to peripherals , control of actuators , etc .). fig3 illustrates the proposed principle of operation of the implementation . the basic block diagram corresponds to one single “ shaded box ” in fig2 . the principle of implementation is as follows : it is assumed that each node ( ie in our case , each hardware functional unit , hw - fu ) sends each message exactly just once . such a message is nothing other than an edge on the line . under this assumption one could implement the message number ( that is , “ k ” of the original algorithm ) with the help of a counter at each receiver node , with one counter z ext , i being required for each input i . at the same time , an internal counter z int is incremented with each message sent . since messages are sent out simultaneously to all outputs , one common counter would basically suffice for all channels . now , based on the comparison of the counter values it can be decided locally whether one or perhaps more messages with a higher k value have been received . this is just the case when z ext , i & gt ; z int . if this is the case on a sufficiently large number of channels , then one can send a new message (= flank or edge ) and / or the local time base is increased by one clock impulse local_tick . from the above description it can be seen that only a relative comparison of z ext , i and z int is necessary . it is thus easier to save on the hardware costs for the counters , and , instead , to provide queues , from which entries are removed in pairs , so that only the difference is visible . these queues can be implemented more conveniently ( though not necessarily ) using asynchronous implementation as elastic pipelines as per [ sutherland89 ]. this is represented schematically in fig3 by “ int . pipe ” and “ ext . pipe ”. the module “ difference & amp ; comparison ” ensures that entries from these pipes are consumed respectively in pairs , ie simultaneously from the internal pipe and external pipe . if there is an entry in the external pipe , whereas the internal pipe is already empty , then apparently z ext , i & gt ; z int , which is correspondingly evaluated by the following module “ using the rules of the algorithm ”. here care must be taken to ensure that always only one of the two rules is “ fired ”. since reading the message also consumes it , z int must be duplicated for each channel ; the insertion of an entry while sending a message takes place simultaneously for all z int , i . the required depth of the pipes is obtained from the maximum expected difference between the received round number and the sent round number and is limited by the algorithm to the value θ . here , the cost for the queues can be kept within limits by using the limit motivated above to θ ≦ 2 . as in the case of implementation in the software , it is favorable here to receive one &# 39 ; s own message at one input . this contributes significantly to not making the minimum execution time over - proportionally short ( for example , via an internal connection ), since this would worsen the value of θ . owing to the incremental transmission of the message k by means of impulses , an error , once incurred , will always remain . this apparently reduces the robustness of the solution . even if up to f such errors can be tolerated , the “ mission time ” of such an implementation is in practice limited , as long as no way of correcting such an error is found . this could be done , for example , at the data level , by occasionally exchanging the absolute value of k or the local_tick between the nodes . the temporal constraints for such correction messages would be completely non - critical owing to the fault - tolerance available anyway ( design only for probability of multiple faults ). since the distributed clock generator does not use any quartz oscillator , the constancy and stability of the clock pulse frequency is relatively low . of course , the chip always operates with the maximum frequency depending on the respective operational conditions , which is optimal for the internal processing , but this increases the difficulty of interfacing with external synchronous components . the frequency stability can , however , be improved , inter alia , by integrating variable delay elements in the clock lines of the ts - net , which are programmed during chip manufacture , or dynamically at run time or , in fact , programmed continuously during operation . an example of the latter would be the temperature compensation known from tcxo &# 39 ; s , with which the chip temperature is measured continuously and the delay is adjusted in accordance with a chip - specific temperature curve . the use of clock pulse conversion circuits is available as an alternative option , in which a separate clock pulse signal is derived from a local clock pulse . adder - based clocks [ sshl97 ] [ sshl97 ] [ sshl97 ] [ sshl97 ] [ sshl97 ] [ sshl97 ] can be used here ( possibly in combination with plls or dlls ). adder - based clocks permit the generation of even non - integral clock ratios . the same problems as with the clock pulse distribution make it increasingly difficult with large vlsi chips and high clock frequencies to guarantee that in the event of a ( power - up ) reset , all functional units begin with the same clock cycle . since the distributed algorithm used for clock pulse generation guarantees the global synchronization even during power - up , a clean simultaneous start of operations of all functional units can be realized with ease . for this purpose it is only necessary to wait for that macrotick in which all functional units have “ skipped ” an open - collector reset - done line : each fu that finds this line inactive at the beginning of a macrotick can begin with its operations . the guaranteed synchronization accuracy ensures that all functional units do this at the same macrotick . circuits generating their own clock pulses , and thus , savings in the local clock pulse sources ( oscillators , quartz crystals ) with a guaranteed system - wide synchronization accuracy limited by a constant . unlike all hardware - based methods for obtaining a fault - tolerant clock pulse , no local clock pulse generators and plls are required on the hardware functional units , and the clock pulse is generated as a result of the interaction between the distributed units . the complex , energy - consuming clock tree is omitted and also the high costs for chip - wide optimization of the clock skew . unlike the gals approach , the synchronous design paradigm is retained both locally ( at the microticks level ) and globally ( at the macroticks level ). even problems of meta - stability can be avoided by suitable selection of the macroticks . no assumptions whatsoever are necessary regarding the absolute execution times . even the relative difference θ between the slowest and the fastest processing time only affects the precision that can be achieved . during the generation and distribution of the clock pulse any f faults can be tolerated . the architecture can be scaled at will with respect to f even this is not possible with the traditional methods for fault - tolerant clock pulse generation . under fault - free conditions the f slowest nodes are “ pulled up ” by the algorithm , ie they cannot slow down the entire system . as a result of using asynchronous logic ( elastic pipeline , muller - c gates ) for the implementation of the algorithm , problems with meta - stability are basically avoided . with the customary solutions for the adaptation of local clock pulses meta - stability can only be made adequately improbable , but cannot be avoided . 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