Hardware synthesis from C/C++

Before attempting to synthesize hardware from a programming language like C or C++, we need to introduce additional semantics to be able to describe hardware behavior accurately. In particular, concurrency, reactivity: communication mechanisms, and event handling semantics need to be added. Also, a synthesizable subset of the language needs to be defined, together with synthesis semantics for programming language constructs. With these enhancements, it is possible to create C/C++ descriptions of hardware at the well-understood RTL and behavioral levels of abstraction, providing an opportunity to leverage existing, mature hardware-synthesis technology that has been developed in the context of HDL based synthesis to create a C/C++ synthesis system. In this paper, we will present some of the key ingredients of a C/C++ synthesis system and elaborate on the challenges of hardware synthesis from C/C++.