The cosynthesis of C using assembly extraction

The work described is related to a technique called software acceleration where key functions of a software program are mapped into an FPGA in order to speed up the overall application. Cosynthesis is a major element in this process. This paper presents a radical technique for cosynthesis where, instead of starting with the original software description, the output of a compiler is processed to generate software. Not only does this allow the synthesis tool to benefit from compiler optimisations, but also simplifies the translation process as only fairly simple instructions need be mapped.