A proof of the Kahn principle for input/output automata
Information and Computation
Digital Systems with Algorithm Implementation
Digital Systems with Algorithm Implementation
SHIM: a deterministic model for heterogeneous embedded systems
Proceedings of the 5th ACM international conference on Embedded software
High-level synthesis: an essential ingredient for designing complex ASICs
Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE/ACM International conference on Computer-aided design
An interactive codesign environment for domain-specific coprocessors
ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES)
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Most hardware description languages do not enforce determinacy, meaning that they may yield races. Race conditions pose a problem for the implementation, verification, and validation of hardware. Enforcing determinacy at the modeling level provides a solution to this problem. In this paper, we consider a common model of computation for hardware modeling --- a network of cycle-true finite-state-machines with datapaths (FSMDs) --- and we identify the conditions under which such models are guaranteed to be race-free. We base our analysis on the Kahn Principle and a formal framework to represent FSMD semantics. We present our conclusions as four simple and easy to enforce modeling rules. A hardware designer that applies those four modeling rules, will thus obtain race-free hardware.