A comprehensive estimation technique for high-level synthesis

Abstract

We present an integrated approach aimed at predicting layout area needed to implement a behavioral description for a given performance goal. Our approach is novel because: (1) it accounts for all types of RT level components (FUs, buses, registers), (2) it is highly flexible, allowing the designer to tradeoff one type of resource with another and considers dependencies between these different types, (3) it is vertically integrated to include provably accurate physical level estimators, and hence provides realistic accounting of layout effects, and (4) it uses a timing model with finer granularity, accounting for various delays in RTL datapaths. We demonstrate our technique on a variety of HLS benchmarks and show that efficient and effective design space exploration can be accomplished using this technique.