Processor without a clock

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Abstract mathematics is timeless, but not orderless. There is an implicit logical order in the theorems that can be shown. The basic order is A ->B, A implies B. In a sense all the theorems that follow from a set of postulates exist all at once. But they have to be discovered/proven in some order.

ruveyn

However if you were to have it so one mathematical process triggers the next at the end of it's own computation, events would occur in the correct order; even without a clock.

Which means that the result is generated as fast as the hardware can process, potentially much faster than a clock tuned to cope with maximum latency, but only runs when there is a need. The hardware does what it is designed for potentially very much faster than clocked designs, but with very much lower power consumption.

But the problem then is, how do you design a general purpose computation unit for which programmes can be written, or for which programmes can be compiled? There are successful systems in specific applications, like traffic management, that are very well suited to asynchronous design. Most other problems are not well-suited to asynchronous design, or our brains are not well-suited to structuring our problems in asynchronous terms. Mostly there has not been a successful asynchronous processor design or computing language that fulfills general purpose needs.

This is outside my field but it's a topic I would like to learn about. I'm confused by the statement above. It seems to me that it would have to have a clock to measure time passing so that it knows when the amount time stored in the register has passed and it's the right time to call the interrupt.

If this is not the case please can you explain why, as I would love to understand more about processors and how they work/

Most processors have a clock, and when ever the clock 'ticks' the processor does something new. What I was suggesting, is to make a processor that doesn't use a clock to function (which I later found out due to this thread, that type of processor is called an asynchronous processor), and when you have to keep track of time, there would be a clock in the processor, that when triggered would complete a count down, and trigger an interrupt, however the processor itself would not be dependent on this clock.

Thanks MDM. That is a very clear explanation.