Towards a high-level synthesis of reconfigurable bit-serial architectures

This paper presents high-level synthesis methods for a fully reconfigurable self-timed synchronous bit-serial pipeline architecture. The idea is to distribute the central control unit. Local controls of the operators are realized through a one-shot implementation of the central control engine. Specialized routing components allow the reconfiguration of the implemented circuit with respect to rapid system prototyping. We describe several kinds of high-level synthesis approaches, especially the scheduling, which can be used for this type of architecture. This means we optimize specific characteristics, like loops, junctions and splitters, during the synthesis phase.