Synthesis Techniques for Digital Systems Design

Several techniques that can be used for the synthesis of structures from behavioural level descriptions are discussed. Data flow analysis, graph grammars, ´direct´ compilation and ´knowledge-based´ systems among others are reviewed and their applicability to synthesis is investigated. Both the specification at the behavioural level and the resulting structure are defined formally by directed graphs. Synthesis is then a transformation between these graphs. It is shown that algorithmic techniques can yield efficient designs, specially if several of them are combined.