Built-in chaining: introducing complex components into architectural synthesis

Abstract

Extends the set of library components which are usually considered in architectural synthesis by components with built-in chaining (BIC). For such components, the result of some internally computed arithmetic function is made available as an argument to some other function through a local connection. These components can be used to implement chaining in a data-path in a single component. Components with BIC are combinatorial circuits. They correspond to "complex gates" in logic synthesis. If compared to implementations with several components, components with BIC usually provide a denser layout, reduced power consumption and a shorter delay time. Multiplier/accumulators are the most prominent example of such components. Such components require new approaches for library mapping in architectural synthesis. In this paper, we describe an integer programming (IP) based approach taken in our OSCAR (Optimum Simultaneous sCheduling, Allocation and Resource assignment) synthesis system.