Cooperation of Synthesis, Retargetable Code Generation and Test Generation in the MSS

This paper demonstrates how the different tools in the MIMOLA hardware design system MSS are used during a typical design process. Typical design processes are partly automatic and partly manual. They include high-level synthesis, manual postoptimization, retargetable code generation, testability evaluation and simulation. The paper demonstrates how consistent tools can help to solve a variety of related design tasks. There is no other system with an equivalent set of consistent tools. A key contribution of this paper is to show how current high-level synthesis systems can be extended by retargetable code generators which map algorithms to predefined structures. This extension is necessary in order to support manual design modifications. 1 Introduction The MIMOLA hardware design system MSS is a set of tools for the design of digital hardware structures. Main emphasis is on programmable structures. The MSS contains tools for high-level synthesis [10, 9], for retargetable code generatio..