A fast scheduling algorithm based on gradual time-frame reduction for datapath synthesis

This paper proposes a fast scheduling algorithm based on gradual time-frame reduction for datapath synthesis of digital signal processing hardwares. The objective of the algorithm is to minimize the costs for functional units and registers and to maximize connectivity under given computation time and initiation interval. Incorporating the connectivity in a scheduling stage can reduce multiplexer counts in resource binding. The algorithm maximizes connectivity with maintaining low time complexity and obtains datapath designs with totally small hardware costs in the high-level synthesis environment. The algorithm also resolves inter-iteration data dependencies and thus realizes pipelined datapaths. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm reduces the multiplexer counts after resource binding with maintaining low costs for functional units and registers compared with eight conventional schedulers.