Adapting Hardware to Software: Productive Programming in a Multi-core Environment

Automated processor synthesis lowers the costs and time of application-specific coprocessor development enabling a more software-centric approach to product development. Once software functionality is established, critical software sections are off-loaded onto application-optimized co-processors. Each coprocessor is optimized to meet performance, power and area metrics, and is fully programmable, so features may be added or improved after market. The simplicity and speed of coprocessor synthesis enables broad design space exploration, and the same software description may be retargeted to meet different product price and performance profiles.