Asynchronous (so-called "clockless" or unclocked) technologies are hardly new, a breakthrough the semiconductor industry has awaited breathlessly for the past ten years (and one almost as elusive as the Loch Ness monster). To call it a break-through, then, may seem a bit hasty. and yet, some holy grails are eventually found, bringing glory with them. This may be the case with asynchronous technologies, the slow maturation of which will now allow for their industry-wide consecration. And that's the real break-through. The fruit of years of R&D conducted within the TIMA labs in Grenoble, france, a company called Tiempo, founded in july 2007, will demonstrate the technology at the Cartes expo, with the unveiling of the market's first true 16-bit asynchronous industrial microcontroller (TAM16) associated with an IP blocks offering. These are the first signs of a revolution, in terms of performance, speed, power consumption, as well as security for embedded electronics and contactless in particular.
