Synthesis from production-based specifications

Abstract

The authors describe a model for, and an implementation of, production-based synthesis of hardware description language (HDL) code in which the overall structure of the resultant machine is derived from a hierarchy of sub-machine descriptions, each represented by a production. The production-based specification (PBS) consists of productions annotated with HDL action code, and forms the input to a design tool which outputs procedural HDL tailored for hardware synthesis. Due to the concise nature of this form of specification, the technique can save enormous labor in the construction of procedural specifications for these machines. Novel aspects of this research include the compilation of a PBS with HDL action clauses into synthesizable procedural HDL and the approach to specification of machine behavior in the event of exceptional conditions.<>