Report Number: CSL-TR-00-793
Institution: Stanford University, Computer Systems Laboratory
Title: Allocation and Interface Synthesis Algorithms for Component-based Design
Author: Smith, James
Date: February 2000
Abstract: Since 1965, the size of transistors has been halved and their speed of operation has been doubled, every 18 to 24 months, a phenomenon known as Moore's Law. This has allowed rapid increases in the amount of circuitry that can be included on a single die. However, as the availability of hardware real estate escalates at an exponential rate, the complexity involved in creating circuitry that utilizes that real estate grows at an exponential, or higher, rate. Component-based design methodologies promise to reduce the complexity of this task and the time required to design integrated circuits by raising the level of abstraction at which circuitry is specified, synthesized, verified, or physically implemented. This thesis develops algorithms for synthesizing integrated circuits by mapping high-level specifications onto existing components. To perform this task, word- level polynomial representations are introduced as a mechanism for canonically and compactly representing the functionality of complex components. Polynomial representations can be applied to a broad range of circuits, including combinational, sequential, and datapath dominated circuits. They provide the basis for efficiently comparing the functionality of a circuit specification and a complex component. Once a set of existing components is determined to be an appropriate implementation of a specification, interfaces between these components must be designed. This thesis also presents an algorithm for automatically deriving an HDL model of an interface between two or more components given an HDL model of those components. The combination of polynomial representations and interface synthesis algorithms provides the basis for a component-based design methodology.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/csl/tr/00/793/CSL-TR-00-793.pdf