Component synthesis from functional descriptions

The authors point out that in functional modeling, the functionalities of one or more components, like arithmetic/logic units, memories, and counters, are described as separate concurrent blocks. An algorithm, called the functional synthesis algorithm (FSA), for synthesis from these functional descriptions is presented. The algorithm automatically synthesizes components needed to implement a functional description while minimizing hardware costs and performance. Since a functional description uses standard operators in the hardware description language, a mismatch between the operators of the language and the functionalities provided by library components arises. FSA solves this functionality mismatch problem by pattern matching between the description and a library of function patterns. In addition, FSA clusters functions to maximally match components from a given library. Experimental results show that automated functional synthesis produces designs that are comparable to those produced by human designers