Open source HLS tools: A stepping stone for modern electronic CAD

This paper presents a comprehensive survey on commonly used High-Level synthesis (HLS) tools that are available as open source. The HLS tools considered in this paper include Bambu, GAUT, Icarus Verilog, LegUp, and MyHDL. This paper also presents the process steps involved in each tool in detail and the major issues and challenges that are to be addressed in these tools in order to make the tools to become the most suitable choice for modern electronic system design.