| Innovation | 2010031282 |
| Date | 12-03-2010 |
| Last modified | 20-05-2012 |
A Single Language for Multiple Hardware Design Tasks
Innovation description
The innovation consists of a new domain-specific hardware description language and corresponding toolset. The language offers the possibility of describing a design at the register-transfer level (RTL) at various degrees of precision. The toolset consists of data-flow analysis of the code, conversion to an internal format and code generators for C and VHDL from this internal format.
Function
The innovation offers rapid prototyping of hardware designs. The C-code generator in the toolset is used to create efficient simulations for the purpose of performance evaluation. The higher simulation speeds create the opportunity of more intensive design-space exploration including the refinement from floating point to fixed-point descriptions and the determination of the clock cycles in which a computation is performed. Once the design has been sufficiently defined, no recoding of the design is necessary: the VHDL-code generator provides the path to FPGA or ASIC synthesis.
Innovative aspects
The newly proposed design language is domain specific. This means that it does not suffer of the \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"subset problem\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" (the fact that a designer has to stick to a language subset and is obliged to follow a coding style) that occurs when an existing programming language like C is used for hardware design. Still, C (clock-cycle-true and bit-true, if desired) and VHDL can be generated for easy integration with other design tools. It is not difficult to add code generators for other target languages.
Innovator company profile
| Company description | digital design, design automation, algorithms |
| Employees | 1 |
| Founding year | 2009 |
| Country | The Netherlands |
| Number of export countries | 0 |
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Requested match with an innovation partner
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| Confidentiality agreement |
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| Partner profile | The ideal partner is a company designing FPGAs or ASICs or has clients doing that. Because it understands the potential value of the tool, it is prepared to contribute to the development of the innovation in return for privileges in access to the tool. |
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