Rabaey High Level Synthesis has undergone remarkable progress in recent years. A number of powerful synthesis environments have been proposed in the area of real time signal processing, both in Europe and the United States. Unfortunately, most of the existing tools span only restricted application domains or very specific architectural styles. To be successful at an industrial level, a unification of the synthesis approaches is clearly essential. The goal of this research is to boost the field of high-level synthesis for digital signal processing by bringing together researchers from the IMEC Research Center at Leuven, Belgium and the University of California at Berkeley. The objectives are to exchange synthesis techniques and tools in an attempt to come to a unified framework, addressing the global architectural domain. At the same time, this cooperation will result in the training of researchers with a wider vision and scope of expertise in the field of high level synthesis.
