Behavioral model synthesis with Cones

Stroud, Charles E.; Munoz, R.R.; Pierce, D.A.

doi:10.1109/54.7960

Cited by 25 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Table 1 lists some of the C-like hardware languages proposed since the late 1980s (see also De Micheli 4 ). One of the earliest was Cones, from Stroud et al 5 From a strict subset of C, it synthesized single functions into combinational blocks. Figure 1 shows such a function.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Challenges of Synthesizing Hardware from C-Like Languages

Edwards

2006

IEEE Des. Test. Comput.

106

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Challenges of Synthesizing Hardware from C-Like Languages

Edwards

2006

IEEE Des. Test. Comput.

106

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Stroud et al [8] developed the design system CONES at AT&T in the late eighties. As the name suggests, a cone is a block of combinational logic, whose output (cone vertex) is either a primary output or an input to a register.…”

Section: Hardware Synthesis From C/c++ Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hardware synthesis from C/C++ models

Micheli

1999

Proceedings of the Conference on Design, Automation and Test in Europe

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Software programming languages, such as C/C++, have been used as means for specifying hardware for quite a while. Different design methodologies have exploited the advantages of flexibility and fast simulation of models described with programming languages. At the same time, the mismatch (of software languages) in expressing power (for hardware systems) has caused several difficulties. In the recent past, novel approaches have helped in reducing the semantic gap, and in easing the creation of design flows that support system-level specifications in C/C++. Hardware Synthesis from C/C++ ModelsThe current and future design of electronic circuits and systems is characterized by several features and constraints. First, the system complexity is increasing, and at the same time the design time has to shrink. Thus, design methodologies and tool flows must support synthesis from highlevel specifications and fast means of verification. Second, most electronic design will target embedded systems, with an increasingly larger component of software. Efficient design and optimal implementation require exploiting hardware/software co-design strategies. Balancing the hardware and software components in the search of on optimal implementation may require the migration of software blocks to hardware or vice versa. Third, design of complex circuits and systems will leverage more and more the re-use of existing hardware and software components. Efficient component re-use requires specification at a high-level of abstraction as well as the ability of mapping the specifications to different targets. Programming language models in C/C++ can be compiled into object code for several architectures, and it is highly desirable to be able to compile them into hardware as well.Within this context, it is clearly obvious why designers write functional models of hardware/software systems, as well as of hardware circuits, using familiar programming languages. Functional models can be evaluated quickly by simulation, and can be directly compiled when a software solution is sought. At the same time, legacy models of software functions written in programming languages can be used as part of a new system design.The drawbacks of using programming languages for hardware design are a few. I shall outline the most important ones. First, hardware circuits can execute operations with a wide degree of concurrency. Conversely, software programming languages like C/C++, were conceived for uni-processor sequential execution. Second, the specifications of hardware circuits entail some structural information. For example, the interface of a circuit with the environment (and/or internal blocks) may require the definition of the input/output ports and the data formats across these ports. In addition, a designer may want to express hints (or constraints) on some partitions of the circuit. Such structural information and constraints are missing from programming languages. Third, detailed timing of the operations is very important in hardware, because of performance a...

show abstract

“…Moreover, many tools such as CONES [18] from AT&T Bell Laboratories have been developed that attempt automated behavioral synthesis of C/C++ descriptions. Behavioral synthesis consists in transforming a behavioral (algorithmic) description of a design into a Register Transfer Level (RTL) description of the design.…”

Section: Hardware/software Design Using C/c++mentioning

confidence: 99%