Accelerating the design process by using architectural synthesis

This paper deals with using architectural synthesis and structured design methodology in order to accelerate the design process. Such task will be achieved using AMICAL, an architectural synthesis tool allowing the design of complex systems. The design starts with a behavioral description and a library of functional units. The library may include standard components and/or complex sub-systems that may be designed using other design tools and methodologies or using AMICAL itself. A design example, namely a PID (Proportional Integral Derivative) is used to illustrate the methodology. The synthesis of the PID is done using several functional unit libraries. The most interesting synthesis results are those obtained on having a sub-system (fixed-point unit) designed using AMICAL, and re-used as a functional unit for the synthesis of the full design.<>