Procedure exlining: a new system-level specification transformation
Frank Vahid · 1995
We introduce a new system-level specification transformation called procedure exlining. Exlining is the problem of replacing sequences of statements by procedure calls, which is the opposite problem of inlining. Procedures are used by system synthesis and behavioral synthesis tools to guide exploration of various high-level implementations, so exlining can greatly improve the results of synthesis. We demonstrate the usefulness of exlining on several examples. 1 Introduction The focus of system design is shifting to earlier stages of design, as automatic tools mature for the later stages. At the early stages, we focus on creating a functionallycorrect specification of the entire system, with VHDL being commonly used as the specification language. Functional correctness means that we have specified correct system output for every possible sequence of inputs, without regard for how the system is eventually implemented. We can simulate the specification extensively to verify correctness,...