Formal transformation of a KPN specification to a GALS implementation

Kahn process networks (KPNs) provide a model of computation for streaming audio, video and various multimedia applications. However, the KPN model consists of unbounded FIFOs between these communicating processes which need to be realized by other means. Application of a design transformation process to a KPN style specification towards a Globally asynchronous locally synchronous (GALS) implementation is one way of achieving this. Furthermore, this transformation process needs to preserve the Kahn principle. In this paper, our main contribution is the presentation of one such refinement based design transformation that preserves the Kahn principle. We present correctness preserving transformation towards a lookup-based architecture where the communication between processes is facilitated by a shared on-chip lookup storage structure. This refinement methodology is generic, and various alternate schemes of GALS implementation can be derived.