Hermod: an interactive behavioral synthesizer for VLSI

Hermod is an interactive behavioral synthesis program. Using a combined control and data-flow graph (C/DFG) as an intermediate representation. Hermod generates functional block representations from behavioral descriptions. Hermod supports a menu-driven interface, displaying the hardware representation for a particular state partitioning. Encouraging user participation in the synthesis process, the system allows the user to control state partitioning and resource sharing through a graphical interface to explore the maximal design space. In developing Hermod, emphasis was also placed on the system´s capability to provide an easy verification of system-generated designs. Written in the object-oriented language C++, Hermod generates a hardware representation in several minutes from a behavioral description of practical size on a VAXstation II