Relative scheduling under timing constraints

Scheduling techniques are used in high-level synthesis of integrated circuits. Traditional scheduling techniques assume fixed execution delays for the operations. For the synthesis of ASIC designs that interface with external signals and events, operations with unbounded delays, i.e. delays unknown at compile time, must also be considered. We present a relative scheduling technique that supports operations with fixed and unbounded delays. The technique satisfies the timing constraints imposed by the user, which places bounds between the activation of operations. We analyze a novel property called well-posedness of timing constraints that is used to identify consistency of constraints in the presence of unbounded delay operations, and present an approach to relative scheduling that yields a minimum schedule that satisfies the constraints, or detects if no schedule exists, in polynomial time.