Effective FPGA debug for high-level synthesis generated circuits

Abstract

High-level synthesis (HLS) promises to increase designer productivity in the face of steadily increasing FPGA sizes, and broaden the market of use, allowing software designers to reap the benefits of hardware implementation. One roadblock to HLS adoption is the lack of a debugging infrastructure. To debug, designers can run their source code on a processor; however, this does not capture interactions with other system components. The alternative is to debug using the RTL, which is beyond the expertise of software designers, and impractical for hardware designers as the RTL may not resemble the original source code.