Högnivåsyntesverktyg

Högnivåsyntesverktyg, often abbreviated as HLS, are specialized software tools used in electronic design automation (EDA). They enable engineers to design complex hardware systems, particularly for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), using high-level programming languages such as C, C++, or SystemC. Traditionally, hardware design involved writing intricate descriptions in hardware description languages (HDLs) like Verilog or VHDL, which are low-level and time-consuming to manage. HLS tools bridge this gap by allowing designers to express their algorithms and functionalities in a more abstract, software-like manner.

The core functionality of an HLS tool is to automatically translate these high-level descriptions into equivalent HDL code. This process involves a series of complex optimizations and transformations to ensure the generated hardware is both functionally correct and meets performance, area, and power constraints. Designers specify directives or pragmas within their high-level code to guide the synthesis process, influencing aspects like pipelining, memory allocation, and resource sharing. This abstraction significantly speeds up the design cycle, reduces the learning curve for new designers, and facilitates rapid prototyping and exploration of different design architectures. HLS is particularly valuable for designs involving complex data processing, signal processing, and artificial intelligence workloads.