Using shadow pointers to trace C pointer values in FPGA circuits

Shadow pointers are proposed as a method for tracing pointer-values during in-system test of circuits generated using High Level Synthesis (HLS). Insertion of a shadow pointer data path is automated through the use of a source-to-source compiler and the transformations are described. Experimental data show that for an average cost of a 4% increase in area shadow pointers can be added to all pointers within the subset of the CHStone benchmarks synthesizable by Vivado HLS. Further experimentation on the blowfish benchmark shows an 11% decrease in area overhead indicating the potential for further optimization in the worst-performing benchmarks.