An Approach to High-Level Synthesis Using Constraint Logic Programming

This paper presents a new method for modeling and solving high-level synthesis problem. In our approach, finite domain constraints and related constraints solving techniques offered by constrained logic programming are used. They make it possible to define basic constraints on operations and registers and provide a way to find optimal or sub-optimal solutions to the data-path synthesis problem. Different design styles, such as multicycling, chaining, pipelined components and algorithmic pipelining can be modeled in this framework. The proposed formulation combines different constraints in one representation and thus the optimization can find a better solution. The prototype system has been implemented in CHIP, the constraint logic programming system. The extensive experiments carried out using this system has proved the feasibility of the presented approach.