Raul Camposano - Böcker

After long years of work that have seen little industrial application, high-level synthesis is finally on the verge of becoming a practical tool. The state of high-level synthesis today is similar to the state of logic synthesis ten years ago. At present, logic-synthesis tools are widely used in digital system design. In the future, high-level synthesis will play a key role in mastering design complexity and in truly exploiting the potential of ASIes and PLDs, which demand extremely short design cycles. Work on high-level synthesis began over twenty years ago. Since substantial progress has been made in understanding the basic then, problems involved, although no single universally-accepted theoretical framework has yet emerged. There is a growing number of publications devoted to high-level synthesis, specialized workshops are held regularly, and tutorials on the topic are commonly held at major conferences. This book gives an extensive survey of the research and development in high-level synthesis. In Part I, a short tutorial explains the basic concepts used in high-level synthesis, and follows an example design throughout the synthesis process. In Part II, current high-level synthesis systems are surveyed.

The time has come for high-level synthesis. When research into synthesizing hardware from abstract, program-like de­ scriptions started in the early 1970' s, there was no automated path from the register­ transfer design produced by high-level synthesis to a complete hardware imple­ mentation. As a result, it was very difficult to measure the effectiveness of high­ level synthesis methods; it was also hard to justify to users the need to automate architecture design when low-level design had to be completed manually. Today's more mature CAD techniques help close the gap between an automat­ ically synthesized design and a manufacturable design. Market pressures encour­ age designers to make use of any and all automated tools. Layout synthesis, logic synthesis, and specialized datapath generators make it feasible to quickly imple­ ment a register-transfer design in silicon,leaving designers more time to consider architectural improvements. As IC design becomes more automated, customers are increasing their demands; today's leading edge designers using logic synthesis systems are training themselves to be tomorrow's consumers of high-level synthe­ sis systems. The need for very fast turnaround, a competitive fabrication market WhlCh makes small-quantity ASIC manufacturing possible, and the ever growing co:n­ plexity of the systems being designed, all make higher-level design automaton inevitable.

The time has come for high-level synthesis. When research into synthesizing hardware from abstract, program-like de­ scriptions started in the early 1970' s, there was no automated path from the register­ transfer design produced by high-level synthesis to a complete hardware imple­ mentation. As a result, it was very difficult to measure the effectiveness of high­ level synthesis methods; it was also hard to justify to users the need to automate architecture design when low-level design had to be completed manually. Today's more mature CAD techniques help close the gap between an automat­ ically synthesized design and a manufacturable design. Market pressures encour­ age designers to make use of any and all automated tools. Layout synthesis, logic synthesis, and specialized datapath generators make it feasible to quickly imple­ ment a register-transfer design in silicon,leaving designers more time to consider architectural improvements. As IC design becomes more automated, customers are increasing their demands; today's leading edge designers using logic synthesis systems are training themselves to be tomorrow's consumers of high-level synthe­ sis systems. The need for very fast turnaround, a competitive fabrication market WhlCh makes small-quantity ASIC manufacturing possible, and the ever growing co:n­ plexity of the systems being designed, all make higher-level design automaton inevitable.

After long years of work that have seen little industrial application, high-level synthesis is finally on the verge of becoming a practical tool. The state of high-level synthesis today is similar to the state of logic synthesis ten years ago. At present, logic-synthesis tools are widely used in digital system design. In the future, high-level synthesis will play a key role in mastering design complexity and in truly exploiting the potential of ASIes and PLDs, which demand extremely short design cycles. Work on high-level synthesis began over twenty years ago. Since substantial progress has been made in understanding the basic then, problems involved, although no single universally-accepted theoretical framework has yet emerged. There is a growing number of publications devoted to high-level synthesis, specialized workshops are held regularly, and tutorials on the topic are commonly held at major conferences. This book gives an extensive survey of the research and development in high-level synthesis. In Part I, a short tutorial explains the basic concepts used in high-level synthesis, and follows an example design throughout the synthesis process. In Part II, current high-level synthesis systems are surveyed.