Abstract
We present an integrated and optimal solution to the problems of operator scheduling, module and register allocation, and operator binding in datapath synthesis. The solution is based on an integer linear programming (ILP) model that minimizes a weighted sum of module area and total execution time under very general assumptions of module capabilities. In particular, a module may execute an arbitrary combination of operations, possibly using different numbers of control steps for different operations. Furthermore, operations may be implemented by a variety of modules, possibly requiring different numbers of control steps depending on the modules chosen. This generality in the complexity and mixture of modules is unqiue to our system and leads to an optimum selection of modules to meet specified design constraints. Significant extensions include the ability to incorporate pipelined functional units and operator chaining in an integrated manner. Straightforward extension to multi-block synthesis is discussed briefly but the details are omitted due to space considerations.