A unified scheduling model for high-level synthesis and code generation

Abstract

Scheduling is an essential task both in high-level synthesis and in code generation for programmable processors. In this paper we discuss the impact of the controller model on the scheduling task for DSP applications. Existing techniques in high-level synthesis mostly assume a simple controller model in the form of a single FSM. However, in reality more complex controller architectures are often used. On the other hand, in the case of programmable processors, the controller architecture is largely defined by the available control-flow instructions in the instruction set. In this paper, a unified scheduling model is presented to handle a wide range of controller architectures,from the application-specific to programmable processor solutions. The impact of choosing a certain controller architecture on the scheduling phase is investigated. Finally, the tasks of controller generation and code assembly are discussed, which will generate the FSM or machine code description from the correct schedule. >