FRIDGE: an interactive code generation environment for HW/SW codesign

Digital mobile systems are sensitive to power consumption, chip size and costs. Therefore they are realized using fixed-point architectures, either dedicated hardware (HW) or fixed-point processors. On the other hand, system design starts from a floating-point description. These requirements have been the motivation for FRIDGE, a design environment for the specification, evaluation and implementation of fixed-point systems. FRIDGE offers a seamless design flow from a floating-point description to a fixed-point implementation. We focus on the FRIDGE-concept of an interactive, automated transformation of floating-point programs written in ANSI-C into fixed-point specifications, based on an interpolative approach. Since HW and software (SW) implementations of the same functionality in general require different fixed-point specifications, the design time reductions that can be achieved by using FRIDGE make it a key component for an efficient HW/SW-codesign.