Annotated Data Types for Addressed Token Passing Networks
Gordon Cichon, Winthir Bunnbauer · 2001
Introduction to Annotated Data Types Annotated data types have proven to be a practical description form for interfaces of SoC components to random addressable buses (see [1]). The central idea behind this new approach is to define a component's interface to a random addressable bus in terms of a data structure it exposes to this bus. This data structure is modeled using a type system similar to that of computer languages, like C or VHDL. This data structure is annotated with additional information relevant for hardware description purposes. In [1], the underlying terminology and framework, as well as a method for synthesizing the functional adaptor part of hardware components, has been described. Application: Token Passing Networks The paper applies annotated data type descriptions of the hardware component interfaces to a synthesis of its internal communication structure. The implementation of a component's functionality is recursively decomposed into smaller blocks which by themsel