El-Amawy A new clock distribution scheme for arbitrarily large parallel and distributed systems, called the branch-and-combine scheme, is proposed. This scheme can guarantee a constant skew upper-bound irrespective of the system size. A theoretical foundation for such schemes is developed to address other critical design issues. The model will be instrumental in establishing formal relationships among topological properties of the clock distribution networks, the timing constraints, and the upper skew bound. Other relevant issues in clock design are also being studied.
