Resolution, optimization, and encoding of pointer variables for the behavioral synthesis from C

• Published in: IEEE transactions on computer-aided design of integrated circuits and systems Vol. 20; no. 2; pp. 213 - 233
• Main Authors: Semeria, L., De Micheli, G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.02.2001; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Arrays; Casting; Compilers; Computer languages; Design optimization; Encoding; Hardware; Hardware design languages; Libraries; Mathematical analysis; Mathematical models; Modeling; Optimization; Registers; Stores; Studies; System performance; Wires
• ISSN: 0278-0070; 1937-4151
• DOI: 10.1109/43.908442

As designers may model mixed hardware-software systems using a subset of C or C++, we present SpC, a solution to synthesize and optimize hardware C models with pointers. In hardware, a pointer is not only the address of data in memory, but it may also reference data mapped to registers, ports, or wires. Pointer analysis is used to find the set of locations each pointer may reference in a program at compile time. In this paper, we address the problem of synthesizing and optimizing pointers to multiple variables or array elements. The value of the pointers are encoded and branching statements are used to dynamically access data referenced by pointers. A heuristic is used to efficiently encode the values of the pointers. Compiler techniques are also used to reduce storage before loads and stores. An implementation using the SUIF framework (Wilson et al., 1994; SUIF Compiler Framework) is presented, followed by some case studies and experimental results.