Turning C into hardware [high-level synthesis]
Electronic Systems and Software · 2004
IC hardware engineers still rely on the traditional, iterative approach based on register transfer level (RTL) code. This time-consuming process involves labour-intensive, manual steps. Aside from being slow, this methodology tends to be error-prone because it is not automated. This article describes the use of transformation techniques, whereby it is possible to take untimed C algorithms and turn them into hardware. By applying different transformations it is possible to try different options to get better performance or size for the hardware blocks that are created.