Fast module mapping and placement for datapaths in FPGAs
Timothy J. Callahan, Philip Chong, André M. DeHon, John Wawrzynek · 1998
By tailoring a compiler tree-parsing tool for datapath module mapping, we produce good quality results for datapath synthesis in very fast run time. Rather than flattening the design to gates, we preserve the datapath structure; this allows exploitation of specialized datapath features in FPGAs, retains regularity, and also results in a smaller problem size. To further achive high mapping speed, we formulate the problem as tree covering and solve it efficiently with a linear-time dynamic programming algorithm. In a novel extension to the tree-covering algorithm, we perform module placement simultaneously with the mapping, still in linear time. Integrating placement has the potential to increase the quality of the result since we can optimize total delay including routing delays.