Abstract state machines as an intermediate representation for high-level synthesis

This work presents a high-level synthesis methodology that uses the abstract state machines (ASMs) formalism as an intermediate representation (IR). We perform scheduling and allocation on this IR, and generate synthesizable VHDL. We have the following advantages when using ASMs as an IR: 1) it allows the specification of both sequential and parallel computation, 2) it supports an extension of a clean timing model based on an interpretation of the sequential semantics, and 3) it has well-defined formal semantics, which allows the integration of formal methods into the methodology. While we specify our designs using ASMs, we do not mandate this. Instead, one can create translators that convert the algorithmic specifications from C-like languages into their equivalent ASM specifications. This makes the hardware synthesis transparent to the designer. We experiment our methodology with examples of a FIR, microprocessor, and an edge detector. We synthesize these designs and validate our designs on an FPGA.