The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 16, 2004
Filed:
Aug. 21, 2001
Paul Philip Boca, London, GB;
Andrew Kay, Oxford, GB;
Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha, Osaka, JP;
Abstract
A method of compiling a source program to produce hardware is provided. The method includes the steps of carrying out data flow analysis of the source program to produce a data flow representation of the source program, where the data flow representation includes a number of multipliers each arranged to accept first and second input arguments having first and second input bit widths respectively, and to produce an output having a bit width; optimizing the data flow representation so that the input and output bit widths are minimised, even if this results in them being different for some or all of the multipliers; and carrying out high level synthesis on the optimised data flow representation, including sharing functional units between the multipliers in such a way that the area of silicon required to produce the functional units is minimised, even if this results in the functional unit input and output bit widths being different.