This page is to describe tools and methods that convert C or C like languages into hardware description languages like VHDL or Verilog. Typically this is a method of creating designs for Field-programmable_gate_array. Wikibooks has a book on the topic of C Programming The C programming language (often, just C) is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in the early 1970s by Dennis Ritchie for use on the Unix operating system. ... VHDL, or VHSIC Hardware Description Language, is commonly used as a design-entry language for field-programmable gate arrays and application-specific integrated circuits in electronic design automation of digital circuits. ... Verilog is a hardware description language (HDL) used to model electronic systems. ... An Altera Stratix II GX FPGA. A field-programmable gate array is a semiconductor device containing programmable logic components called logic blocks, and programmable interconnects. ...

Discussion

There didn't seem to much link information on the various C to HDL tools and flows. Wikibooks has a book on the topic of C Programming The C programming language (often, just C) is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in the early 1970s by Dennis Ritchie for use on the Unix operating system. ... In electronics, a hardware description language or HDL is any language from a class of computer languages for formal description of electronic circuits. ...

History

Early development on C to HDL was done by Ian Page and colleagues at Oxford University in the 90s. They comercialized their research by forming Celoxica in 1999. There are other tools and flow that aim to achieve the same but with flow rather than C based design, these are discussed in the Flow_to_HDL page. Wikibooks has a book on the topic of C Programming The C programming language (often, just C) is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in the early 1970s by Dennis Ritchie for use on the Unix operating system. ... In electronics, a hardware description language or HDL is any language from a class of computer languages for formal description of electronic circuits. ... This page is to describe tools and methods that convert Flow based system design into hardware description languages like VHDL or Verilog. ...

Applications

Application currently are mainly the sort of applications that currently take too long with existing supercomputer architectures. These may include Bioinfomatics, CFD, Financial processing, Oil and Gas survey data analysis. Embedded applications that require high performance or real-time data processing is also an area of use. Also System-on-a-chip design can be done using this flow. System-on-a-chip (SoC or SOC) is an idea of integrating all components of a computer system into a single chip. ...

The C-To-VHDL compilers are very useful for large designs or for implementing a code that might change in the future. In deed designing a large application in HDL only can be very difficult; using the abstraction of a high level language for such large application is a gain of time. It is very easy as well to modify a high level language code contrary to HDL code; if the designer needs new functionality to his program, adding a new line to a C code is easier than remodelling a HDL code.

Tool Examples and their Vendors

• C-to-Verilog tool (NISC) from University of California, Irvine
• CatapultC tool from Mentor Graphics
• Cynthesizer from Forte Design Systems
• SystemC from [Celoxica]
• Handel-C from [Celoxica]
• DIME-C from Nallatech
• Impulse_C from [Impulse Accelerated Technologies]
• FpgaC which is an open source initiative
• SA-C_programming_language
• Cascade from [Critical Blue]
• Mitrion-C from Mitrionics
• C2R Compiler from [Cebatech]
• Mimosys Clarity from [Mimosys]
• Hthreads Compiler (based on GCC) from the University of Kansas

// This page describes methods and tools that support No-Instruction-Set-Computer (NISC) Technology. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... SystemC is often thought of as a hardware description language like VHDL and Verilog, but is more aptly described as a system description language, since it exhibits its real power during transaction-level modeling and behavioral modeling. ... Handel-C is a programming language designed for compiling programs into hardware images of FPGAs or ASICs. ... DIME-C is a C to HDL tool developed by Nallatech it is part of their DIMEtalk Design Tools suite. ... Nallatech is a Scottish computer hardware and software firm based in Cumbernauld in North Lanarkshire, Scotlandthat specializes in and is one of the world leaders in Field-programmable gate array microchip technology in FPGA Computing. ... Impulse C is a subset of the C language combined with a C-compatible function library supporting parallel programming, in particular for programming of applications targeting FPGA devices. ... FpgaC is a compiler for a subset of the C programming language, which produces digital circuits that will execute the compiled programs. ... Single Assignment C (SA-C) [pronounced sassy] is a member of the C programming language family designed to be directly and intuitively translateable into circuits, including FPGAs. ... A cascade is a term for a waterfall, or series of waterfalls, and is applied abstractly to many different concepts involving a series of steps or effects that follow one after the other. ... Mitrionics is a Swedish company manufacturing softcore reconfigurable processors. ... The University of Kansas (often referred to as KU) is an institution of higher learning in Lawrence, Kansas. ...

External links

• [1] a good article on Dr Dobbs Journal about ImpulseC.
• [2] an overview of flows by Daresbury Labs.
• [3] an Overview of Hardware Compilation and the Handel-C language.
• [4] Xilinx's ESL initiative, some products listed and C to VHDL tools.