Automatic datapath and controller generation for reconfigurable ASIP

The need for complex designs that meet the desired application specific criteria and time-to-market pressure increase the importance of High Level Synthesis (HLS) tools, which take high level behavioral representation of the desired functionality as the input and generate HDL description of hardware at RTL level for FPGA or ASIC targets. FPGAs are getting more popular than ASICs and microprocessors due to their architectural flexibility, on-site upgradability and computing power. In this thesis, an HLS tool for FPGAs is proposed. This tool has the following capabilities: (i) generation of optimized RTL which consists of datapath and its controller. To achieve this, the tool extracts the clock period of the optimized RTL by using the optimization results and the delay models of the arithmetic operators. (ii) generation of Golden RTL where there is no optimization and resource sharing on the datapath. (iii) estimation of delay and area of the generated RTL specifications by using the estimation models. This tool is integrated in RH(+) Design Automation Framework. The generated RTLs are tested in Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA. The estimated delay and area of both the Golden RTL and Optimized RTL generated by the tool are compared with the results of Xilinx ISE tool set for different input applications.