FADIC: architectural synthesis applied in IC design

This paper discusses the design of a chip using architectural synthesis. The chip, FADIC, is applied in digital audio broadcasting (DAB) receivers. It shows that architectural synthesis tools are used for the design of new complex applications and that it supports the evolutionary development of challenging applications like DAB. It was found that the success of such tools in the design community depends on the way user interaction is supported and stimulated. Fast and accurate feedback from the synthesis tools in combination with a rich set of hints for the compiler to guide the architecture exploration are the key issues. It is shown that short time to market is possible for implementations which are an order of magnitude more efficient than alternative implementations on commercially available DSP processors.