Graphical block-diagram based programming environment for a DSP silicon compiler

The paper presents a graphical block-diagram based programming tool, which is a new software development system for digital signal processing (DSP). This system provides a block-diagram editor; therefore, the DSP system can be easily built by connecting functional blocks as described in the signal-flow graph. A block library is set up, which includes basic signal processing functions and some frequently used high level signal processing functions like FIR, IIR, FFT, etc. A friendly graphic user interface (GUI) based on the `X-Window´ system is developed to support each design step. Users can then improve their design easily according to the GUI´s response. To guarantee the correctness of the circuits designed, the debugging and verifying capabilities are embedded in our system. The full system is combined with a structural silicon compiler, which we developed previously. Several designs will be illustrated as examples. It has been shown that this tool will be suitable for DSP system design by using a silicon compiler