A synchronous language with partial delay specification for real-time systems programming

Abstract. High-level formal programming languages require system de-signers to provide a very precise description of the system during early development phases, which may in some cases lead to arbitrary choices (i.e. the designer “overspecifies ” the system). In this paper, we propose an extension of synchronous dataflow languages where the designer can specify that he does not care whether some communication is immediate or delayed. It is then up to the compiler to choose where to introduce delays, in a way that breaks causality cycles and satisfies latency require-ments imposed on the system.