Untimed Digital

In the world of modern technology, there's a concept called Untimed Digital that's becoming popular. It's a way of handling complex computer tasks in a new and innovative manner. One of the key ideas in this concept is something called "Synchronous Dataflow" or SDF simulation. This is a way to handle regular calculations that happen on streams of data, which is really useful in things like signal processing. Imagine you have a process that needs to be done on a continuous stream of data. SDF breaks this process down into small, individual steps. Each step is like an atomic action. What's cool about SDF is that it can tell if a process is going to get stuck or if it will eventually finish, which is super practical. It's especially great when you need to be sure about what's going to happen in applications where you need things to be certain and predictable.

SDF is unique because it can figure out the order in which these small steps should happen, either all at once or one after another. It figures this out before anything actually starts. This is really helpful for things like designing software that needs to work in real-time or designing hardware. Now, there are similar ideas that come from this one. There's something called Boolean Dataflow (BDF), which has some similarities but needs a more careful approach. It can figure out if things are going to get stuck or finish, but sometimes it can't decide for sure. Then there's Dynamic Dataflow (DDF), which is different. It doesn't try to figure things out beforehand. It waits and figures things out as they happen. It's a bit more flexible but not as good at predicting certain things.