research-article

Synthesis of hardware models in C with pointers and complex data structures

Authors:

Giovanni De MicheliAuthors Info & Claims

IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems, Volume 9, Issue 6

Pages 743 - 756

https://doi.org/10.1109/92.974889

Published: 01 December 2001 Publication History

Abstract

One of the greatest challenges in a C/C++-based design methodology is efficiently mapping C/C++ models into hardware. Many networking and multimedia applications implemented in hardware or mixed hardware/software systems now use complex data structures stored in multiple memories, so many C/C ++ features that were originally designed for software applications are now making their way into hardware. Such features include dynamic memory allocation and pointers for managing data. We present a solution for efficiently mapping arbitrary C code with pointers and malloc/free into hardware. Our solutoin, which fits current memory management methodologies, instantieates an application-specific hardware memory allocator coupled with a memory architecture. Our work also supports the resolution of pointers without restriction on the data structures. We present an implementation based on the SUIF framework along with case studies such as the realization of a video filter and an ATM segmentation engine.

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Cited By

Ramanathan NConstantinides GWickerson J(2022)A Case for Precise, Fine-Grained Pointer Synthesis in High-Level SynthesisACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems10.1145/349143027:4(1-26)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3491430
Dossis MDiamantaras KEvangelidis GManolopoulos YGeorgiadis CKefalas PStamatis D(2013)Modeling and simulation in a formal design frameworkProceedings of the 6th Balkan Conference in Informatics10.1145/2490257.2490274(31-38)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2490257.2490274
Ben-Asher YRotem N(2013)Using memory profile analysis for automatic synthesis of pointers codeACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems10.1145/2442116.244211812:3(1-21)Online publication date: 8-Apr-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2442116.2442118
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Synthesis of hardware models in C with pointers and complex data structures
1. Hardware
  1. Integrated circuits
    1. Semiconductor memory
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language types

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cover image IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems

IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems Volume 9, Issue 6

System Level Design

12/1/2001

261 pages

ISSN:1063-8210

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2001.

Publisher

IEEE Educational Activities Department

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 December 2001

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Cited By

Ramanathan NConstantinides GWickerson J(2022)A Case for Precise, Fine-Grained Pointer Synthesis in High-Level SynthesisACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems10.1145/349143027:4(1-26)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3491430
Dossis MDiamantaras KEvangelidis GManolopoulos YGeorgiadis CKefalas PStamatis D(2013)Modeling and simulation in a formal design frameworkProceedings of the 6th Balkan Conference in Informatics10.1145/2490257.2490274(31-38)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2490257.2490274
Ben-Asher YRotem N(2013)Using memory profile analysis for automatic synthesis of pointers codeACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems10.1145/2442116.244211812:3(1-21)Online publication date: 8-Apr-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2442116.2442118
Middendorf LBobda CHaubelt CGroeneveld PSciuto DHassoun S(2012)Hardware synthesis of recursive functions through partial stream rewritingProceedings of the 49th Annual Design Automation Conference10.1145/2228360.2228583(1207-1215)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2228360.2228583
Wernsing JStitt G(2010)Elastic computingACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/1755951.175590645:4(115-124)Online publication date: 13-Apr-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1755951.1755906
Wernsing JStitt GLee JChilders B(2010)Elastic computingProceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED 2010 conference on Languages, compilers, and tools for embedded systems10.1145/1755888.1755906(115-124)Online publication date: 13-Apr-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1755888.1755906
Cardoso JDiniz PWeinhardt M(2010)Compiling for reconfigurable computingACM Computing Surveys10.1145/1749603.174960442:4(1-65)Online publication date: 23-Jun-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1749603.1749604
Stitt GChaudhari GCoole JGebotys CMartin G(2008)Traversal cachesProceedings of the 6th IEEE/ACM/IFIP international conference on Hardware/Software codesign and system synthesis10.1145/1450135.1450150(61-66)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1450135.1450150
Haldar MSingh GPrabhakar SDwivedi BGhosh AFix L(2008)Construction of concrete verification models from C++Proceedings of the 45th annual Design Automation Conference10.1145/1391469.1391707(942-947)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1391469.1391707
Jung HYang HHa S(2008)Optimized RTL Code Generation from Coarse-Grain Dataflow Specification for Fast HW/SW CosynthesisJournal of Signal Processing Systems10.1007/s11265-007-0070-952:1(13-34)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11265-007-0070-9
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