Modular Scheduling Constraint Speci cation

This paper describes an improved speciication method of scheduling constraints for high-level synthesis. Communication with external devices imposes many scheduling constraints and added functionality on a design. Traditional methods require the designer to manually embed the external constraints from all outside devices into the description of the system being designed; this approach is both tedious and error-prone. We use the behavior nite-state machine model|a nite-state machine model extended to model scheduling|to create interface descriptions as separate models. Interface constraint modules can be designed once and placed in libraries, reducing work and the chance of error in the interface speciication; freeing the designer from manually reeecting external interface behavior in the system under design also reduces design errors.