Programmable Chips in Consumer Electronics and Telecommunications

Introduction Mobile and personal communication systems, and multi-media are among the most prominently growing sectors of the electronics industry today. As an illustration, Figure 1 gives an indication of the volume of some personal communication applications in the European market. New business and home applications are emerging, using advanced communication media such as satellite links, cellular radio, or high-speed optical networks. The success of these developments will however depend to a great extent on the ability to realise complex digital signal processing functionalities in cost-efficient VLSI chips. 1990 1992 1994 1996 40 30 20 10 0 Million users Cordless Cellular Paging Private mobile Figure 1. European market of personal communication systems (source : Elsevier Advanced Technology). The design of these chips is subject to stringent requirements in terms of processing performance and power dissipation. At the sam

User Guided High Level Synthesis

International audienceThis paper presents a High Level Synthesis (HLS) method for specialized coprocessors in embedded systems. In recent years, the synthesis of hardware systems has moved to a higher level of abstraction, but the existing tools leave very little initiative to the designer. With User Guided High Level Synthesis (UGH), we introduce the notion of Draft Data-Path Scheme (DDPS) which we consider an efficient way for the user to guide the HLS process. It describes the general structure of the data-path, without detailed information like signal-widths or physical implementation of multiplexers. Guided by these structural constraints, UGH intends to deliver a full data-path and a scheduled Finite State Machine that takes into account the detailed timing characteristics of the target physical library