Article

Domain-Specific Language for HW/SW Co-design for FPGAs

Author:

Jason AgronAuthors Info & Claims

DSL '09: Proceedings of the IFIP TC 2 Working Conference on Domain-Specific Languages

Pages 262 - 284

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03034-5_13

Published: 02 July 2009 Publication History

Abstract

This article describes FSMLanguage, a domain-specific language for HW/SW co-design targeting platform FPGAs. Modern platform FPGAs provide a wealth of configurable logic in addition to embedded processors, distributed RAM blocks, and DSP slices in order to help facilitate building HW/SW co-designed systems. A technical challenge in building such systems is that the practice of designing software and hardware requires different areas of expertise <em>and</em> different description domains, i.e. languages and vocabulary. FSMLanguage attempts to unify these domains by defining a way to describe HW/SW co-designed systems in terms of sets of finite-state machines --- a concept that is reasonably familiar to both software programmers and hardware designers. FSMLanguage is a domain-specific language for describing the functionality of a finite-state machine in such a way that its implementation can be re-targeted to software or hardware in an efficient manner. The efficiency is achieved by exploiting the resources found within modern platform FPGAs --- namely the distributed RAM blocks, soft-core processors, and the ability to construct dedicated communication channels between FSMs in the reconfigurable fabric. The language and its compiler promote uniformity in the description of a HW/SW co-designed system, which allows a system designer to make partitioning and implementation strategy decisions later in the design cycle.

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Cited By

Lai YUstun EXiang SFang ZRong HZhang Z(2021)Programming and Synthesis for Software-defined FPGA Acceleration: Status and Future ProspectsACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems10.1145/346966014:4(1-39)Online publication date: 13-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3469660
Vanderbauwhede WNabi SUrlea C(2019)Type-Driven Automated Program Transformations and Cost Modelling for Optimising Streaming Programs on FPGAsInternational Journal of Parallel Programming10.1007/s10766-018-0572-z47:1(114-136)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10766-018-0572-z
Méndez-Acuña DGalindo JDegueule TCombemale BBaudry B(2016)Leveraging Software Product Lines Engineering in the development of external DSLsComputer Languages, Systems and Structures10.1016/j.cl.2016.09.00446:C(206-235)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.cl.2016.09.004
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cover image Guide Proceedings

DSL '09: Proceedings of the IFIP TC 2 Working Conference on Domain-Specific Languages

July 2009

409 pages

ISBN:9783642030338

Editor:
Walid Mohamed Taha
Department of Computer Science, Rice University, Houston, USA TX 77005

Publisher

Springer-Verlag

Berlin, Heidelberg

Publication History

Published: 02 July 2009

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Cited By

Lai YUstun EXiang SFang ZRong HZhang Z(2021)Programming and Synthesis for Software-defined FPGA Acceleration: Status and Future ProspectsACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems10.1145/346966014:4(1-39)Online publication date: 13-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3469660
Vanderbauwhede WNabi SUrlea C(2019)Type-Driven Automated Program Transformations and Cost Modelling for Optimising Streaming Programs on FPGAsInternational Journal of Parallel Programming10.1007/s10766-018-0572-z47:1(114-136)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10766-018-0572-z
Méndez-Acuña DGalindo JDegueule TCombemale BBaudry B(2016)Leveraging Software Product Lines Engineering in the development of external DSLsComputer Languages, Systems and Structures10.1016/j.cl.2016.09.00446:C(206-235)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.cl.2016.09.004
Harrison WProcter AAgron JKimmell GAllwein G(2009)Model-Driven Engineering from Modular Monadic SemanticsProceedings of the IFIP TC 2 Working Conference on Domain-Specific Languages10.1007/978-3-642-03034-5_2(20-44)Online publication date: 2-Jul-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-642-03034-5_2

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