Grammar-based specification and synthesis for synchronous digital hardware design

Most hardware description languages in use today model behavior in a procedural fashion. In a procedural style, control flow is specified explicitly. This thesis presents a new behavioral system for the synthesis of synchronous digital hardware from an applicative grammar-based specification language. This language represents control flow in an implicit manner. Applications of this system include the design of system modules which have complex control behaviors but are concisely described in an applicative style. Such systems include controllers, protocol engines, and reactive systems. The system employes symbolic BDD-based techniques for hardware synthesis and analysis of the input design specifications. Synthesized designs are generated in the VHDL language. The system is demonstrated on example designs such as the i...