Behavioral synthesis

Since the 1988 tutorial on behavioral (high-level) synthesis which appeared in the DAC proceedings (and later in the proceedings of the IEEE) much has happened in the field. Behavioral synthesis is now considered mainstream EDA as evidenced by the number of articles at conferences, journals and books. May be even more significant, several products are being offered commercially, and the number of designers using behavioral synthesis is probably in the hundreds. The initial promise of behavioral synthesis, to dramatically increase productivity by elevating the level of design, has been fulfilled. The increase in productivity of behavioral design versus RTL design is typically quoted at 5 times. What came as a surprise to most researchers in the field, is that this is achieved without impacting the quality of results (area, timing)! If anything, behavioral designs are slightly smaller and faster that their RTL counterparts, mainly because much more architectural exploration can be afforded at the behavioral level, thus providing a better starting point for synthesis.