Walker : Lower Bounds on Functional Units

|This paper presents a new polynomial-time algorithm for computing lower bounds on the number of functional units (FUs) of each type required to schedule a data ow graph in a speci ed number of control steps. A formal approach is presented that is guaranteed to nd the tightest possible bounds that can be found by relaxing either the precedence constraints or integrality constraints on the scheduling problem. This tight, yet fairly e cient, bounding method can be used to estimate FU area, to generate resource constraints for reducing the search space, or in conjunction with exact techniques for e cient optimal design space exploration.