Synthesis of Operation-Centric Hardware Descriptions

Most hardware description frameworks, whether schematic or textual, use cooperating finite state machines (CFSM) as the underlying abstraction. In the CFSM framework, a designer explicitly manages the concurrency by scheduling the exact cycle-by-cycle interactions between multiple concurrent state machines. Design mistakes are common in coordinating interactions between two state machines because transitions in different state machines are not semantically coupled. It is also difficult to modify one state machine without considering its interaction with the rest of the system. This paper presents a method for hardware synthesis from an “operation centric” description, where the behavior of a system is described as a collection of “atomic” operations in the form of rules. Typically, a rule is defined by a predicate condition and an effect on the state of the system. The atomicity requirement simplifies the task of hardware description by permitting the designer to formulate...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: ICCAD
• Authors: James C. Hoe, Arvind
• Keywords: Concurrent State Machines, Hardware, Hardware Description, ICCAD 2000, State Machine