Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

In the literature, it is generally overlooked that designers use functional models more frequently than behavioral or gate-level models. In functional modeling, the functionality of one or more components, like arithmetic/logic units, memories, and counters, are described as separate concurrent blocks. We present an algorithm, called Component Synthesis Algorithm (CSA), for synthesis from these functional descriptions. Our algorithm automatically synthesizes components needed to implement a functional description while minimizing hardware costs and performance. Since a functional description uses standard operators in the hardware description language, a mismatch between the operators of the language and the functionalities provided by library components arises. CSA solves this functionality mismatch problem by pattern matching of the description against a library of function patterns. In addition, CSA clusters functions to maximally match components from a given library. Experimental results show that automated functional synthesis produces designs that are comparable to those produced by human designers.