High Level Synthesis

Tasks of the Designer/Manager These ideas apply to the design itself, must be reproduced in the chip

Aspects of Pipelining

A view at the synthesis and design You may optimize on focus of an aspect at one time

The most important aspect of design is how you deal with time

Dealing with space is the result of dealing with time

Parameters of design

Floorplanning

Fighting complexity

Example: Partial Differential Equation

2 ALU/* 1 ALU 2 * Earliest Deadline (ASAP) ALU/* * *

Another ALU

Hardware Solution number 3 Slow and cheap 1 ALU and 1 multiplier 7 time steps + <

ALAP ALU/* * ALU 2 ALU/* 2 * 1 ALU

There are free Integer Linear Programming Packages on the internet, you can buy one at PSU bookstore

Harmony and Balance in Design

The Kung Systolic Array as an example of high-level structural synthesis, universal protype CAD tools: Simulation and visual simulation Code generation, Array design Optimization

Spatial Computing

Conclusion: Steps lead to design This year project is on Hough Transform

Problems for students to think about. Recall and discuss examples of pipelining. Ford’s pipelining and other metaphores from social life or industry that may be used in high level and system design. (how many workers to speed-up mowing the lawn). How to implement a long convolution – think about all possible methods. Discuss how you can solve scheduling and allocation using graphs and moving their nodes vertically and horizontally. Use first the differential equation example, next generalize to new graphs. Relation of floor-planning and high level synthesis – a new perspective. Computing in space – one, two and three directions. Discuss ray-tracing and other similar applications in which the computer mimicks physics in space.